THE  CHURCH 
AND  THE  HOUR. 

PAPERS    BY" 
A  SOCIALIST  CHURCHWOMAN 


'  VIDA  D.  SCUDDEH  ^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/churchhourreflecOOscudrich 


The  Church  and  the  Hour 


The 
Church  and  the  Hour 

Reflections  of   a    Socialist    Churchwoman 

By 

Vida  D.  Scudder,  A.M. 


New  York 

E.  P.  Dutton  &  Go, 

681  Fifth  Avenue 


COPYSIGHT,    I917 
BY 

E.  P.  DUTTON   &   CO. 


•••  ?  •*-.  >. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

Although  this  little  book  is  entitled  Papers 
by  a  Socialist  Chtirchwoman,  there  is  no 
discussion  of  socialism  in  it.  This  is  because 
the  author  does  not  feel  that  the  Church  at 
large  should  be  called  upon  to  commit  itself  to 
any  Ism,  or  special  set  of  economic  doctrines. 
She  does  not  see,  to  be  candid,  how  an  in- 
telligent Christian  can  help  being  a  socialist. 
But  that  is  her  narrowness.  She  is  obliged 
to  confess  that  many  devout  and  able  minds 
do  not  embrace  the  creed  so  dear  to  her;  and 
she  is  not  concerned  in  this  place  with  propa- 
ganda, but  with  considering  the  distinctive 
work  and  ftmction  of  the  Church  as  it  is.  If 
she  is  privately  convinced  that  such  action 
and  attitude  as  this  book  calls  for  will  lead 
all  commimicants  ultimately  to  the  socialist 
position,  that  is  her  own  affair  and  might  form 
the  subject  of  another  book.  Her  effort  has 
been  to  pierce  below  controversy;  to  be  very 
practical ;  above  all,  to  suggest  only  what  every- 


35«032 


vi  Preface 

one  on  reflection  must  agree  that  honest 
discipleship  to  the  Son  of  Mary  irnder  modem 
conditions  would  involve. 

It  may  be  noticed  that  some  of  the  papers 
strike  a  more  pessimistic  and  critical  note 
than  others  in  regard  to  the  probability  of  the 
Churches  ftimishing  effective  social  leadership. 
That  is  because  these  papers  were  written 
at  intervals  during  the  last  five  years,  and 
circtimstances  have  caused  the  prospect  to 
appear  now  brighter,  now  darker.  That  the 
Introduction  which  is  the  latest  written 
should  also  be  the  most  optimistic,  may  be 
of  good  augury. 


CONTENTS 

PAOS 

Preface v 

Introduction i 

The  Alleged  Failure  of  the  Church  to 
Meet  the  Social  Emergency.  Paper 
Presented  at  the  Church  Congress  in 
Norfolk,  Va.,  May,  1916        .         .         .40 

The  Church's  Opportunity.     (Reprinted  from 
The  Churchman,  191 3)         .         .         .         '74 

Tw^o  Letters  to  the  Masses.     (Reprinted 

from  The  Masses,  Dec.,  191 5,  Feb.,  19 16)       .       95 

Why  Does  Not  the  Church  Turn  Socialist? 

(Reprinted  from  The  Coming  Nation,  1913)    .     103 

A  Plea  for  Social  Intercession.     (Reprinted 

from  The  Churchman)  .  .  .  .119 

The  Sign  of  the  Son  of  Man        .        .        .131 


vu 


The  Church  and  the  Hour 


Christian  democracy  applied  to  indus- 
try means  the  development  of  cooperative 
relations  to  the  fullest  possible  extent. 
The    Church    should    therefore    clearly 
teach  the  principle  of  the  fullest  possible 
cooperative  control  and  ownership  of  in- 
dustry and  the  natural  resources  upon 
which  industry  depends,  in  order  that 
men    may  be    spurred  to  develop  the 
methods  that  shall  express  this  principle. 
Report  of  the    Commission   on   the 
Church    and  Social  Service    to    the 
Quadrennial  Meeting  o}  the  Federal 
Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in 
America,    December^  igi6% 


The  Church  and  the  Hour 

Papers  by  a  Socialist  Churchwoman 


INTRODUCTION 
I 

The  papers  presented  in  this  little  book 
were  written  for  widely  varying  publics. 
The  longer  were  contributed  to  Church  papers 
or  delivered  before  Church  audiences;  some  of 
the  shorter  were  printed  in  the  socialist  press 
and  addressed  to  people  who  have  no  point  of 
contact  with  the  Church.  But  all  had  one 
object:  to  promote  better  understanding  be- 
tween the  religious  world  which  fears  social 
revolution,  and  the  unchtirched  world  of  radical 
passion  which  desires  it. 

These  two  worlds  are  nearer  each  other 
than  is  commonly  supposed  or  than  either 


2*'     "  "  "The  Chiirch  and  the  Hour 

realizes.  Among  radicals,  the  irrepressible 
hunger  for  spiritual  experience  stirs  here  and 
there  unmistakably.  And  this  in  spite  of 
bitter  abuse  and  scorn  lavished  not  on  Christ 
Himself  but  on  His  followers.  It  is  all  very 
well  to  assert  that  "The  Church  is  Judas 
Iscariot/'  that  creeds  are  dead  and  that  no 
cult  of  an  Oriental  god  can  solve  modem 
problems.  One  may  gather  such  assertions 
by  the  handful  from  the  pages  of  the  radical 
press.  But  through  the  defiance  of  the 
authors  runs  more  and  more  a  note  of  doubt. 
For  the  truth  is  that  creeds  are  not  dead  but 
very  much  alive,  that  the  "Oriental  god"  is 
still  to  countless  men  the  one  Master  of  the 
world's  salvation,  and  that  the  churches, 
akin  rather  to  Peter  than  to  Judas,  are  almost 
awake  to  the  peril  in  which  they  have  been  of 
betraying  their  Lord.  Their  vast  reservoirs 
of  social  power  have  been  long  ice-bound. 
But  the  ice  is  breaking,  the  waters  begin  to 
move.  It  is  not  beyond  hope,  that  soon  these 
waters  may  be  released,  to  flow  forth,  at  the 
moment  when  the  need  of  the  world  is  greatest, 
in  streams  that  shall  be  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations. 


Introduction  3 

The  social  awakening  of  the  churches  is  the 
great  fact  which  this  little  book  would  signal, 
and  in  its  modest  way  would  further. 

It  is  full  time  that  the  critics  of  the  Church, 
—  and  they  are  many,  including  some  of  her 
most  loyal  children, — should  become  aware 
of  the  advanced  position  which  various  official 
Christian  groups  are  now  taking  at  last  on 
questions  concerning  social  justice.  From  one 
point  of  view,  to  be  stue,  official  statements 
coimt  for  nothing.  If  too  far  ahead  of  the 
public  conscience,  they  become  inert  formulae, 
and  formulae  not  translated  into  life  are  the 
ancient  curse  of  religion.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  if  the  Chiirch  finds  no  corporate 
expression  for  the  restlessness  and  comptmc- 
tion  that  consume  Christian  hearts  to-day, 
she  will  soon  deserve  the  contempt  or  in- 
difference which  she  is  sure  to  inspire.  The 
Spirit  ever  works  at  first  secretly,  kindling 
in  the  wills  of  the  faithful  fires  that  cannot  be 
concealed;  but  in  due  time  these  fires  light 
on  the  altar  of  the  Church  flames  that  shall 
illimiine  the  world. 

Not  very  long  ago,  Christians  who  felt 
the  revolutionary  implications  of  their  faith 


4  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

looked  in  vain  to  the  churches  for  any  en- 
couragement or  endorsement.  To  draw  out 
the  social  significance  of  the  Gospels,  to  define 
Christian  duty  in  terms  of  industrial  justice 
for  an  industrial  age,  was  a  task  wholly 
neglected  and  desperately  necessary.  As 
recently  as  the  time  of  Maurice  and  Kingsley, 
it  was  attempted  by  English  Christianity 
only  through  sweeping  generalities  if  at  all, 
and  these  noble  pioneers  were  distrusted  by 
religious  authorities  and  silenced  in  religious 
circles.  As  lately  as  the  time  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  the  task  could  be  ignored  by  a  great 
spiritual  leader.  But  it  cannot  be  ignored  any 
longer,  and  the  power  to  rest  in  generalities 
is  past.  Concrete  and  stinging  must  be  the 
application  of  Christian  ideals  made  by  the 
Church  to  modem  civilization  and  modem 
Christian  lives.  The  last  years  have  taught 
all  who  watch  Europe  that  there  are  no 
heights  of  sacrifice  to  which  humanity  will 
refuse  to  rise  if  the  summons  sounds  au- 
thentic. 

But  if  the  Church  has  failed  to  offer  any 
social  leadership  through  official  channels,  at 
least  the  voice  of  great  churchmen  pleading 


Introduction  5 

for  justice  has  never  been  silent  down  the 
Christian  ages: 

'*So  destructive  a  passion  is  avarice  that  to 
grow  rich  without  injustice  is  impossible.  .  .  . 
But  what  if  a  man  succeeded  to  his  father's 
inheritance?  Then  he  received  what  has  been 
gathered  by  injustice.  For  ...  of  the  many 
who  were  before  him  somebody  must  im- 
justly  have  taken  and  enjoyed  the  goods  of 
others  .  .  .  because  God  left  the  earth  free  to 
all  alike.  Why  then  if  it  is  common,  have  you 
so  many  acres  of  land,  and  your  neighbor  has 
not  a  portion  of  it?'* — Henry  George  is  not 
speaking:  that  is  St.  Chrysostom. 

'*It  will  be  objected  to  holding  goods  in 
common  that  governments  will  perish  because 
no  one  cares  to  preserve  common  property. 
But  no,  if  that  law  were  in  force,  states  would 
be  most  excellently  preserved.  .  .  .  For 
goods  are  to  be  cared  for  in  proportion  to  their 
excellence.  Now  goods  held  in  common  are 
the  best  of  all, — therefore,  they  must  be 
cared  for  most  perfectly."  That  is  not  a 
modem  syndicalist  utterance,  it  is  Wyclif  in 
his  youth,  writing  his  De  Dominio  Civile, 

Quotations   equally  telling  might  be  mul- 


6  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

tiplied  from  age  to  age.  But  statements 
bearing  the  stamp  of  ecclesiastical  authority 
are  harder  to  seek.  An  outstanding  fact  is 
the  Encyclical  of  Pope  Leo  XIII,  Rerum 
Novarum,  dating  from  1891.  It  reads  mildly 
enough  now,  but  it  was  considered  at  the 
time  to  be  very  socialistic  in  tendency,  and  it 
does  call  for  a  revised  concept  of  Christian 
duty,  in  the  light  of  the  modem  economic 
situation.  From  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth 
century,  expressions  of  social  faith  slowly  ap- 
pear; so  that  some  day,  history  may  narrate 
the  captiire  of  the  modem  Church  by  a  social 
Christian  ideal.  Among  English-speaking 
Christians,  the  first  striking  group-utterance 
of  the  century  was  perhaps  that  of  the  Lam- 
beth Conference  of  1908.  It  sounds  rather 
faint  beside  St.  Chrysostom,  but  is  good  as 
far  as  it  goes: 

''What  is  now  needed  is  .  .  .  groups  of 
Christian  men  and  women  in  every  pk  je 
determined  to  make  it  their  aim  to  bring  the 
sense  of  justice  and  righteousness  which  is 
common  to  Christianity  and  to  Democracy, 
to  bear  upon  the  matters  of  every-day  life  in 
trade,  in  society,  and  wherever  their  influence 


Introduction  f 

extends:  and  to  stir  up  public  opinion  on 
behalf  of  the  removal  of  wrong  wherever  it 
may  be  foimd,  thus  making  an  earnest  en- 
deavor to  share  in  the  transforming  work  of 
Christianity  for  their  brethren  and  com- 
panions* sake/*  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  to  whom  this  statement  was  due. 

In  this  country,  viewing  all  organized 
Christianity  together,  the  first  impressive 
landmark  is  the  platform  adopted  by  the 
Federal  Council  of  Churches  in  Chicago, 
1912: 

''The  churches  must  stand: 

''i.  For  equal  rights  and  complete  justice 
for  all  men  in  all  stations  of  life. 

*'2.  For  the  protection  of  the  family,  by 
the  single  standard  of  purity,  uniform  divorce 
laws,  proper  regulation  of  marriage,  and 
proper  housing. 

"3.  For  the  fullest  possible  development 
for  every  child,  especially  by  the  provision  of 
proper  education  and  recreation. 

**4.     For  the  abolition  of  child  labor. 

"5.  For  such  regulation  of  the  conditions 
of  toil  for  women  as  shall  safeguard  the  physi- 
cal and  moral  health  of  the  community. 


8  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

"6.  For  the  abatement  and  prevention  of 
poverty. 

''7.  For  the  protection  of  the  individual 
and'' society  from  the  social,  economic,  and 
moral  waste  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

"8.     For  the  conservation  of  health. 

"9.  For  the  protection  of  the  worker  from 
dangerous  machinery,  occupational  diseases, 
and  mortality. 

''10.  For  the  right  of  all  men  to  the  oppor- 
timity  for  self -maintenance,  for  safeguarding 
this  right  against  encroachments  of  every 
kind,  and  for  the  protection  of  workers  from 
the  hardships  of  enforced  imemployment. 

''11.  For  suitable  provision  for  the  old 
age  of  the  workers,  and  for  those  incapacitated 
by  injury. 

''12.  For  the  right  of  employees  and 
employers  alike  to  organize;  and  for  adequate 
means  of  conciliation  and  arbitration  in  indus- 
trial disputes. 

"13.  For  a  release  from  employment  one 
day  in  seven. 

''14.  For  the  gradual  and  reasonable  re- 
duction of  the  hours  of  labor  to  the  lowest 
practicable   point,    and    for   that   degree   of 


Introduction  9 

leisure  for  all  which  is  a  condition  of  the 
highest  human  life. 

"15.  For  a  living  wage  as  a  minimum  in 
every  industry,  and  for  the  highest  wage  that 
each  industry  can  afford. 

"16.  For  a  new  emphasis  upon  the  appli- 
cation of  Christian  principles  to  the  acqtiisition 
and  use  of  property,  and  for  the  most  equitable 
division  of  the  product  of  industry  that  can 
ultimately  be  devised.'* 

That  document  certainly  registers  a  great 
advance  on  the  statement  of  the  Lambeth 
Conference.  It  is  the  work  of  minds  trained 
not  only  to  social  emotion  but  to  practical 
social  thinking,  and  it  is  cognizant  of  specific 
modem  issues.  Claims  as  extreme  as  any 
radical  could  make  are  interspersed  among 
definite  points  which,  taken  together,  remind 
one  of  the  platform  of  the  Progressive  Party, 
— a  document,  it  may  incidentally  be  said, 
modeled  if  report  speak  true  on  this  very  pro- 
gram. "Equal  rights  and  complete  justice  for 
all  men,*'  ''The  abatement  and  prevention  of 
poverty, "  ' '  The  most  equitable  division  of  the 
product  of  industry  that  can  ultimately  be  de- 
vised" .  .  .  the  words  have  a  vigorous  ring. 


10  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

and  they  are  redeemed  from  the  suggestion  of 
verbiage  without  vision,  by  the  practical  propo- 
sitions in  regard  to  child-labor,  the  minimum 
wage,  pensions,  the  right  to  organize,  the  reduc- 
tion of  working  hours  "to  the  lowest  practicable 
point, ''  and  the  like.  It  is  an  admirable  pro- 
gram. It  sets  a  mark  to  which  many  of  the 
separate  churches  have  not  yet  begtm  to  attain. 
In  the  quadrennial  meeting  of  the  same 
Coimcil,  held  in  St.  Louis,  Dec.  1916,  this 
program  was  reaffirmed,  with  a  preamble 
well  worth  quoting: 

STATEMENT  OF  SOCIAL  FAITH 

The  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America  expresses  again  the  deepen- 
ing conviction  that  the  scope  of  the  gospel 
and  the  program  of  the  chiu-ches  must  include 
the  creation  on  earth  of  a  Christian  civili- 
zation, organized  upon  the  ethical  teachings 
and  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  addition  to  the  tmquestioned  historic 
mission  and  work  of  Christianity  with  the 
individual,  we  tmderstand  this  to  involve 
certain   great   social   accomphshments;   that 


Introduction  ii 

among  these  are:  the  abolishment  of  war;  the 
transformation  of  the  dangerous  commercial 
rivahies  of  the  nations  into  a  just  and 
brotherly  cooperation;  the  coming  together 
on  terms  of  equaHty  and  justice  of  capitalist, 
employer,  workers,  and  the  constmiing  public 
in  brotherly  cooperative  effort,  and  the  shift- 
ing of  industry  from  off  its  basis  of  profits 
upon  that  of  human  welfare;  the  lifting  of  the 
women  of  the  world  to  a  position  of  freedom 
and  equality  with  the  men  of  the  world;  the 
destruction  of  the  curse  of  strong  drink;  the 
control  of  the  infectious  diseases  which  afflict 
humanity;  the  control  of  the  vices  of  the  race; 
the  removal  of  the  handicap  of  poverty  from 
submerged  millions  of  people  of  all  nations; 
the  uplift  of  backward  races  and  their  freedom 
from  the  permanent  and  enforced  domination 
of  more  powerful  peoples;  the  extension  of 
democracy  throughout  the  earth,  and  the 
development  of  its  efficiency  and  honesty, 
with  the  supreme  emphasis  upon  the  spiritual 
values  of  himian  life.  Many  of  these  object- 
ives, perhaps  all  of  them  in  their  wider  reaches 
are  the  work  of  generations;  but  they  are  with- 
in the  power  of  human  effort  when  sustained 


18  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

and  scientifically  organized,  and  henceforth 
they  are  to  be  ever  before  the  churches. 
They  call  for  faith  and  consecrated  endeavor 
on  an  unprecedented  scale. 

The  whole  report  is  full  of  practical  and 
pertinent  suggestions. 

Among  the  churches,  the  Anglican  or  Pro- 
testant-Episcopal,— a  body  rather  shy  of  its 
own  name,  but  at  present  legally  known  by  the 
latter  title — ^has  usually  been  reckoned  one 
of  the  most  instinctively  conservative  and 
aristocratic.  But  the  last  two  General  Con- 
ventions have  taken  action  which  at  least 
partially  exonerates  it  from  this  accusation. 
The  Convention  meets  triennially,  with  two 
Houses,  a  House  of  Bishops  and  a  Lower 
House  of  Clergy  and  Lay  Deputies,  and  it  is 
the  official  organ  of  the  Church.  In  1910, 
the  Convention  endorsed  the  appointment  of 
a  Social  Service  Commission.  In  191 3,  this 
Commission  was  actually  appointed,  and  got 
to  work,  being  confirmed  in  191 6.  In  the 
meantime,  local  Social  Service  Commissions 
were  appointed  in  many  provinces,  dioceses, 
and  parishes,  imtil  the  organization  of  this 


Introduction  13 

new  activity  is  on  the  way  to  become  as 
thorough  as  that  of  the  missionary  activities 
of  the  Church,  with  which,  in  the  mind  of 
members  of  the  Commission,  it  should  run 
parallel.  The  Joint  Commission  has  been 
occupied  largely  in  aiding  the  creation  of  this 
machinery  and  in  preparing  itself  to  cooperate 
with  the  other  commissions;  it  has  published 
some  excellent  literature,  it  conducted  an 
effective  educational  campaign  during  the 
Convention  of  191 6,  and  it  is  preparing  con- 
ferences on  a  large  scale,  for  the  consideration 
of  economic  and  social  problems  from  the 
strictly  Christian  point  of  view,  to  be  held  in 
different  sections  of  the  country.  Its  chief 
aim  is  not  the  imdertaking  of  practical  reforms, 
which  must  in  the' nature  of  things  lie  outside 
its  scope,  but  the  social  education  of  each 
commimicant  and  each  child  of  the  Church; 
and  the  reception  of  its  study  courses  and 
pamphlets  shows  how  ready  the  Church  and 
its  members  are  to  welcome  just  such  work. 

But  the  Convention  did  more  than  appoint 
a  Commission.  In  both  1913  and  1916  it 
took  a  definite  stand  on  social  fimdamentals. 
In  191 3,  the  following  Resolution  was  passed: 


14  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

Whereas,  The  moral  and  spiritual  welfare 
of  the  people  demands  that  the  highest  possi- 
ble standard  of  living  should  everywhere  be 
maintained  and  that  all  conduct  of  industry 
should  emphasize  the  search  for  such  higher 
and  more  human  forms  of  organization  as  will 
genuinely  elicit  the  personal  definite  stake  in 
the  system  of  production  to  which  the  worker's 
life  is  given;  and 

Whereas,  Injustice  and  disproportionate 
inequality  as  well  as  misimderstanding,  preju- 
dice, and  mutual  distrust  as  between  employer 
and  employee  are  widespread  in  our  social  and 
industrial  life  to-day: 

Therefore,  be  it  Resolved,  The  House 
of  Bishops  concurring,  that  we,  the  members 
of  the  General  Convention  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church,  do  hereby  affirm  that  the 
Church  stands  for  the  ideal  of  social  justice, 
and  that  it  demands  the  achievement  of  a 
social  order  in  which  the  social  cause  of  poverty 
and  the  gross  himian  waste  of  the  present 
order  shall  be  eliminated,  and  in  which  every 
member  shall  have  a  just  return  for  what  he 
produces,  a  free  opportimity  for  self-develop- 
ment, and  a  fair  share  in  all  the  gains  of 


Introduction  15 

progress.  And  since  such  a  social  order  can 
only  be  achieved  progressively  by  the  efforts 
of  men  and  women  who  in  the  spirit  of  Christ 
put  the  common  welfare  above  private  gain, 
the  Church  calls  upon  every  commimicant, 
clerical  and  lay,  seriously  to  take  part  in  the 
study  of  the  complex  conditions  imder  which 
we  are  called  upon  to  live,  and  so  to  act 
that  the  present  prejudice  and  injustice  may 
be  supplanted  by  mutual  imderstanding, 
sympathy,  and  just  dealing,  and  the  ideal 
of  a  thoroughgoing  democracy  may  be  fully 
realized  in  our  land. 

That  is  advanced,  in  its  outspoken  repudia- 
tion of  Lais ser-f aire,  and  its  assertion  that 
spiritual  welfare  demands  the  highest  possible 
standard  of  living, — an  assertion  which  sen- 
timental and  other-worldly  Christians  are 
always  loath  to  admit,  and  which  indeed  if 
literally  and  individually  applied  might  carry 
us  into  strange  regions.  It  is  also  fine  in 
maintaining  that  disproportionate  inequality 
obtains  in  social  and  industrial  life  to-day, 
and  in  its  statement  that  the  Church  demands 
a  social  order  in  which  the  social  cause  of 


l6  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

poverty  shall  be  eliminated.  If  Christians  at 
large  would  only  recognize  the  responsibil- 
ity of  religion  per  se  to  eliminate  the  social 
cause  of  poverty,  instead  of  claiming  too  often 
that  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter, 
the  struggle  for  justice  would  be  half  won. 

But  when  the  Resolution  passes  from  general 
statements  to  definite  recommendations,  it 
betrays  a  generation  still  in  the  fog.  The  non- 
committal appeal,  or  instruction,  to  communi- 
cants, is  a  decided  drop  from  the  first  part  of 
the  statement.  They  are  asked  chiefly  to 
study  conditions:  also,  so  to  act  that  justice 
and  sympathy  may  be  promoted  and  the 
ideal  of  democracy  be  realized.  It  is  true  that 
study  must  precede  action  and  that  the  first 
step  onward  is  to  create  a  right  temper  in 
Christian  people,  but  one  may  doubt  whether 
these  general  adjurations,  excellent  as  they 
are,  would  make  any  difference  to  the  readers 
of  them.  Certainly,  communicants  in  191 7 
ought  to  be  and  are  ready  for  more  definite 
guidance. 

Such  guidance  they  get,  in  respect  both  to 
thought  and  action,  from  a  Resolution  passed 
at  the  General  Convention  in  the  autimin 


Introduction  17 

of  1 91 6.  It  is  simpler  and  briefer  than  the 
statements  hitherto  quoted,  and  it  omits  all 
denunciation  of  the  present  system,  as  well  as 
any  attempt  to  formulate  the  ultimate  prin- 
ciples of  a  Christian  social  order.  It  is  ad- 
dressed to  the  Church  as  it  is,  not  to  the 
Church  as  radicals  want  it  to  be;  for  as  has 
felicitously  been  said,  the  Church  is  not  a 
radical  body,  but  a  bourgeois  body  touched 
with  compunction.  But  in  spite  of  the  quiet 
tone  of  the  Resolution,  it  implies  the  necessity 
for  profoimd  change  as  thoroughly  as  does  the 
Resolution  of  1913;  it  cuts  deeper  into  the 
matter  of  private  conduct  and  starts  in  at 
least  on  the  difficult  and  unusual  task  of  sug- 
gesting to  Christian  people  precise  points  at 
which  through  their  personal  action  social  re- 
formation might  begin : 

Be  it  Resolved,  That  the  service  of  the 

community  and  the  welfare  of  the  workers,  not 
primarily  private  profits,  should  be  the  aim 
of  every  industry  and  its  justification;  and 
that  the  Church  should  seek  to  keep  this  aim 
constantly  before  the  mind  of  the  public; 
and  that  Christians  as  individuals  are  tinder 


18  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

the  obligation  on  the  one  hand  conscientiously 
to  scrutinize  the  sources  of  their  income,  and 
on  the  other  hand  to  give  moral  support  and 
prayer  to  every  just  effort  to  secure  fair 
conditions  and  regular  employment  for  wage- 
earners  and  the  extension  of  true  democracy 
to  industrial  matters.^ 

Production  for  use  and  not  for  private 
profit  is  the  very  nucleus  of  socialist  theory. 
Social  revolution  is  not  too  strong  a  phrase  to 
describe  the  cleavage  that  would  ensue  be- 
tween our  present  methods  and  a  civilization 
governed  by  that  central  principle  in  its 
economics.  To  call  on  the  Church  constantly 
to  keep  this  transformation  before  the  pub- 
Kc  mind  is  to  place  a  new  responsibility  on 
every  clergyman  and  commimicant.  As  for 
the  command  that  Christians  scrutinize  the 
sources  of  their  incomes,  it  does  not  at  first 
sound  very  drastic.  St.  Chrysostom  and  the 
socialist  local  will  agree  in  going  further  and 
telling  us  that  we  ought  not  to  have  any 
incomes  at  all.  Perhaps,  however,  if  we 
scrutinize  sources  thoroughly  and  conscien- 
tiously, there  may  not  in  the  long  run  be  much 


Introduction  19 

income  left.  If  Christian  people  in  general 
should  discover  by  any  chance  that  the  sources 
of  income  under  the  present  system  can  rarely 
bear  scrutiny,  when  exposed  to  the  flash- 
light of  conscience,  they  may  decide  that  the 
present  system  has  got  to  go. 

"Moral  support  and  prayer**  for  every 
just  effort  of  the  wage-earners  or  others  to 
secure  fair  conditions  for  labor  is  a  suggestion 
which  cuts  at  the  center.  What  Chris- 
tendom really  prays  for,  it  will  work  for  and 
will  gain.  How  much  praying  is  the  habit  of 
Christian  hearts  as  a  regular  part  of  their 
religious  duty,  when  strikes  are  in  progress, 
one  wonders?  And  what  about  moral  support? 
Too  often,  Church  people  behave  as  if  in- 
dustrial or  legislative  struggles  were  none  of 
their  concern.  Parochial  activities,  Simday- 
Schools,  Girls*  Friendly,  Missions, — these  are 
their  concern  and  the  concern  of  the  Church. 
The  other  matters  are  out  of  her  province,  and 
indifference  masked  in  humility  declines  to 
hold  an  opinion  about  them.  All  this  should 
now  be  changed.  If  people  obey  the  simimons 
of  the  Church,  as  expressed  both  in  191 3  and 
191 6,  they  can  no  longer  easily  assume  that 


20  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

it  is  none  of  their  responsibility  to  make 
up  their  minds  about  the  [rights  in  a  labor 
war.  It  is  their  Christian  business  to  attend 
to  such  matters,  to  have  opinions  when  pos- 
sible, to  take  sides,  and  to  support  the 
struggle  of  and  for  the  workers,  whenever 
they  shall  consider  it  just, — ^not  otherwise, — 
with  their  sympathy  and  with  their  prayers. 
The  last  phrase,  about  the  extension  of  de- 
mocracy to  industry,  may  help  them  a  little 
in  this  difficult  matter  of  forming  an  opinion. 
It  affords  a  guiding  principle,  in  the  light 
of  which  the  decision  where  to  throw  one's 
sympathy  in  concrete  cases  becomes  easier. 
This  Resolution  of  191 6  was  enthusiastically 
and  tmanimously  adopted  by  the  Bishops,  and 
endorsed  by  the  Lower  House.  It  is  not  the 
expression  of  a  conservative-minded  body,  it  is 
the  expression  of  brave  men. 

In  the  light  of  these  statements,  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  complain  that  the  Churches 
are  silent.  The  social  feeling  of  individual 
Christians  may  still  so  outstrip  any  corpo- 
rate Church  expression  that  it  commands  a 
new  horizon;  but  this  is  rarely  true  of  their 


Introduction  21 

social  action.  If  Church  members  wovild 
pursue  the  course  of  conduct  impHed  in  these 
recent  formulae,  they  would  make  their  Chris- 
tianity a  visible  fact,  forced  on  the  recognition 
of  everyone.  They  would  live  in  a  mountain 
city,  set  on  high  for  all  to  see  as  their  Master 
pictured  them,  instead  of  settling  down,  con- 
tentedly to  all  appearance,  as  they  mostly  do 
now,  among  other  folk  in  the  sordid  cities  of 
the  plain. 

*'  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the 
Spirit  saith  imto  the  Churches.'' 


II 


There  are  two  interesting  points  in  connec- 
tion with  these  formulae.  The  first  is,  that  in 
all  of  them,  the  attack  on  the  existing  order 
is  scrupulously  from  the  moral,  not  the  eco- 
nomic end.  The  last  Resolution  of  the  Epis- 
copal Convention  was  even  commended  by  the 
New  York  Times  on  this  accoimt!  Even  the 
program  of  the  Federal  Council,  though  it 
treads  debatable  groimd,  treads  it  with  such 
cautious  steps  that  it  would  be  hard  for  any 


22  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

Christian  to  disagree  with  its  practical  de- 
mands. This  reticence  is  wise.  For  it  is  a 
pity  that  the  Church  should  take  controversial 
positions  with  which  honest  Christians  can 
disagree,  when  there  are  so  many  positions  out 
of  the  reach  of  legitimate  controversy  which  are 
nevertheless  quite  revolutionary  in  character! 
Such  honest  Christians  ought  not  to  have 
their  freedom  of  thinking  violated  by  ex- 
cathedra  pronouncements  from  the  Church. 
To  be  allowed  to  think  foolishly,  if  we  must 
think  foolishly  to  think  honestly,  is  a  preroga- 
tive hardly  won,  which  the  race  must  very 
jealously  guard:  all  of  us  need  the  protection 
of  it  sometimes,  and  to  deny  that  sacred  right 
leads  straight  to  the  Inquisition.  In  this  new 
fimction  of  social  guidance  on  which  the 
Church  is  seemingly  entering,  she  needs  to 
practice  very  delicate  discrimination.  To 
get  up  a  party  which  shall  fight  to  gain  the 
endorsement  of  the  Church  for  this  measure  or 
that  program  is  an  attractive  short-cut  to 
social  Christianity,  but  it  is  a  short-cut  that 
leads  to  By-Ends*  Meadows  and  will  end  by 
pltmging  the  Church  into  the  morass  of  politics. 
Socialists  claim,  and  rightly,  that  the  lack  of 


Introduction  23 

thinking  in  economic  terms  is  fatal  to  a  sense 
for  reality,  and  every  Christian  is  imder  orders 
to  learn  how  to  think  in  these  terms.  But  the 
business  of  the  Church  as  a  Church  is  to  trans- 
late them  into  Christian  ethics.  This  is  good 
strategics;  it  creates  a  far  more  salutary 
annoyance  to  press  home  the  disturbing 
truths  to  which  Christians  are  nominally 
committed  by  virtue  of  their  allegiance,  in 
language  which  no  Christian  can  challenge, 
than  to  deal  in  alien  technicalities.  In  the 
statements  just  quoted,  it  is  hard  to  find  any- 
thing which  the  Christian  disciple  could  deny, 
short  of  making  the  ftmdamental  assertion 
that  the  relations  of  men  in  this  world  are 
none  of  his  business.  This  is  why  those 
statements  are  effective.  Economic  programs 
are  necessary  in  their  place,  but  one  does 
not  need  to  adopt  the  specious  ''dynamic" 
theory  of  the  Church  to  see  that  this  place  is 
not  in  Chtirch  formulae. 

Nor  does  this  opinion  invite  the  Church  to 
take  refuge  in  evasive  platitudes, — an  easy 
alternative  all  too  readily  embraced  on  occa- 
sion by  bishops  and  other  clergy,  not  to  speak 
of  the  laity.    It  means  that  the  Church  has  a 


24  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

distinctive  and  difficult  work  to  do.  To  probe 
to  the  quick,  to  trouble  people,  to  sting  them 
into  courses  of  action  that  involve  unconven- 
tionality,  pluck,  readiness  for  adventure, — 
that  is  her  duty.  But  this  sort  of  result  is 
gained  only  by  direct  appeal  to  heart  and 
conscience.  Possibly  the  teaching  of  the 
Church,  if  it  is  sincere,  must  lead  those  who 
obey  to  share  the  fate  of  their  Master,  Who 
was  pursued  by  the  venomous  enmity  of 
the  respectable  classes  of  His  day,  and  was 
finally  executed  as  a  criminal  by  the  unani- 
mous will  of  the  religious  and  the  secular 
authorities.  That  ought  to  suffice.  Let  the 
Church  speak  her  own  language.  If  bravely 
and  consistently  uttered,  if  faithfully  obeyed, 
it  will  be  found  to  correspond  closely  with 
economic  theories  quite  at  variance  with 
those  on  which  society  now  more  or  less 
uneasily  reposes;  and,  under  pressure  from 
two  diverse  directions  making  for  one  same 
end,  the  world  may  find  itself  transformed. 

The  other  point  to  notice  about  these 
statements  is  that  the  Church  is  not  appealing 
especially  to  the  working  classes.  She  is  not 
thinking  in  terms  of  class  at  all.    What  is  in 


Introduction  25 

her  mind  is  no  movement  pushed  from  behind 
by  the  sharp  prong  of  economic  distress,  it  is 
rather  a  general  movement  impelled  by  such 
single-hearted  passion  for  justice  as  should  be 
common  to  all  people.  And  here  again,  her 
policy  will  discredit  her  in  many  radical  minds. 
Those  who  cling  to  the  Marxian  belief  that 
substantial  progress  is  won  only  by  the 
rebellion  of  the  oppressed,  will  scorn  the  ap- 
peal to  disinterested  action.  Nor  are  the 
Marxians  alone.  Whether  one  looks  at  nations 
or  at  classes,  a  widespread  feeling  that  no 
group  of  men  will  ever  act  contrary  to  their 
own  interests,  and  that  the  future  of  the  world 
must  be  determined  by  balance  of  greeds,  cuts 
the  nerve  of  idealist  effort.  Some  warm  ideal- 
ists are  among  those  who  distrust  a  general 
appeal.  They  too  feel  that  the  slow  pressure 
of  the  working  classes  toward  power  is  the 
one  effective  hope  for  freedom;  and  they  think 
that  the  most  useful  thing  for  a  lover  of  justice 
to  do  is  to  imclass  himself  and  to  throw  in  his 
lot  with  the  proletarian  struggle. 

Now  there  is  a  misunderstanding  here 
which  needs  to  be  cleared  up. 

It  is  true  that  this  upward  movement  of  men 


26  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

seeking  expansion  and  freedom  is  the  most 
salient  and  inevitable  fact  of  history.  For 
the  first  sacred  duty  imposed  on  nations,  on 
classes,  on  individuals,  is  the  search  for  life's 
fulfillment.  Fullness  of  Ufe  must  precede  any 
impulse  toward  sacrifice.  Life  must  be  whole 
before  it  can  be  offered ;  there  was  no  mutila- 
tion of  Our  Lord's  Body  on  the  Cross.  It 
was  a  perfect  Humanity  which  there  gave 
itself  in  an  oblation  full,  perfect,  and  sufficient 
for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 

And  so,  while  the  Church  cannot  endorse 
the  crass  forms  of  economic  determinism,  and 
will  never  yield  to  a  materialistic  interpreta- 
tion of  history,  she  is  not  debarred  from  warm 
sympathy  with  the  class  struggle.  Far  from 
being  debarred  from  such  sympathy.  Chris- 
tian people  are  called  to  it.  So  long  as  they 
can  applaud  the  self-defense  of  a  small  nation, 
they  cannot  condemn  the  self-defense  of  a 
weak  class.  Beyond  the  fogs  in  which  we 
grope,  shines  the  fair  intermittent  vision  of  a 
non-resistant  humanity;  we  look  at  it  wist- 
fully and  honor  those  conscientious  objectors 
who  even  now  seek  to  walk  in  its  light.  But 
to   invoke   that   vision   when   a   big   people 


Introduction  27 

tramples  down  a  little  people,  is  not  yet 
within  the  compass  of  much  Christian  thought. 
Equally  beyond  that  compass  should  be  dis- 
approval or  indifference  toward  the  fight  of 
working-class  groups  to  preserve  or  enlarge 
their  liberties.  Feeble  girl  garment-workers 
learning  to  stand  together  for  their  rights 
with  the  light  of  battle  dawning  in  their  eyes, 
respond  to  the  rhythmic  stress  which  is 
evolving  life  throughout  the  universe;  they 
are  part  of  the  God-consciousness  ever  quick- 
ening in  the  clay.  The  struggle  for  freedom  is 
righteous  and  religious,  whether  it  be  found 
in  striking  miner  or  in  outraged  nation,  and 
Christian  hearts  must  recognize  in  it  the 
motions  of  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life. 

Yet  this  struggle,  whether  in  the  form  of 
demand  for  better  wages  and  hours,  or  for 
political  independence,  is  on  the  lower  range 
of  human  action,  on  the  range  of  the  natural 
life.  The  Church  is  one  with  nature,  one  it 
may  almost  be  said  with  common  sense,  in 
approving  it;  but  the  Church  as  Church  has 
no  relation  to  it  at  all.  For  her  business  is 
with  life  on  the  higher  level,  the  life  regenerate. 
On  this  level  she  must  teach,  from  this  level 


28  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

she  must  appeal.  Her  distinctive  song  is  not 
the  Marseillaise,  though  she  does  not  forbid 
her  children  to  sing  it;  it  is  the  Vexilla 
Regis,  The  Royal  Banner  under  which  her 
host  advances  against  the  host  of  evil,  is  the 
banner  of  the  Cross. 

Naturally,  the  world  scoffs,  nor  can  any  one 
be  surprised  at  its  scepticism  in  face  of  the 
spectacle  of  history.  Perhaps  non-religious 
people  may  long  have  to  remain  boimd  in  the 
chains  of  scepticism  and  economic  determin- 
ism; perhaps  the  best  they  can  share  is  the 
lower  though  holy  enthusiasm  of  the  fighters 
for  freedom  on  the  lower  plane.  None  the 
less,  the  Church  knows  that  the  world  is 
wrong.  Hers  is  no  cynic  distrust,  no  pseudo- 
scientific  fatalism.  She  is  aware  of  a  secret 
principle,  working  counter  to  the  indrawing 
principle  that  claims  and  appropriates, — the 
outgoing  principle  that  sacrifices  and  gives. 
The  Church  knows  that  man  is  the  child  of 
God  by  adoption  and  grace,  and  that  he  can 
rise  to  God-like  action;  for  she  has  marked  his 
brow  with  the  Holy  Sign.  Baptismal  Regen- 
eration is  a  doctrine  consigned  to  the  rear  of 
most  Christian  minds.    If  it  means  anything, 


Introduction  29 

it  means  a  triumphant  refutation  of  the 
determinist.  It  asserts  that  Christian  folk 
can  be  appealed  to  en  masse,  to  act  on  a 
supernatural  level,  where  their  private  inter- 
est will  yield  instinctively  and  as  a  matter 
of  course,  to  the  general  good. 

The  Church's  faith  in  a  regenerate  himian- 
ity  is  not  much  in  evidence  just  now.  To 
regain  it,  she  must  descend  into  the  depths  of 
her  most  mystical  convictions.  If  she  can  get 
even  a  wee  mustard-seed  measure  of  that 
faith,  she  can  say  to  the  mountains  of  class- 
greed  and  privilege,  Be  ye  cast  down  and 
thrown  into  the  sea.  They  would  cnmible 
away,  those  mountains,  they  would  fall  in 
crashing  avalanche,  down,  down,  till  no  vestige 
of  them  remained.  Her  opportunity  and  her 
power  are  imique,  if  she  will  greatly  dare. 
Her  beUef  that  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
people  coming  imder  her  jurisdiction  can  and 
must  be  raised  to  distinterested  social  action, 
makes  her  mistress  of  a  province  all  her  own. 
It  is  her  distinctive  contribution  to  the  present 
crisis.  So  far,  she  has  at  best  only  reiterated 
what  other  right-minded  bodies  are  saying, 
but  it  is  inconceivable  that  she  should  pause 


30  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

there.  Far  from  merely  echoing  approval  of 
measures  which  secular  agencies  endorse, 
which  even  the  Government  in  some  cases 
begins  to  further,  she  might  take  the  initiative. 
Her  work  is  not  to  annoimce  new  economic 
theories,  it  is  only  incidentally  to  approve 
specific  programs.  It  is  to  insist  that  her 
children  sift  theories  uncompromisingly  in  the 
light  of  Christian  idealism;  it  is  above  all  to 
offer  the  incentive  which  shall  draw  men  to  try 
the  Great  Adventure  of  Christian  living  in 
terms  of  the  new  age. 

Ill 

The  Church  must  not  only  call  to  action, 
she  must  show  the  way  to  it.  And  that  is  more 
difficult,  for  even  honest  eyes  see  such  a  tangle 
of  paths !  And  the  Hill  of  Calvary,  from  which 
the  only  true  way  reaches,  rises  very  far  from 
modem  vision.  But  perhaps  in  these  heart- 
rending days,  eyes  purged  with  tears  are  grow- 
ing more  able  to  discern  it. 

Two  special  phases  of  social  consecration  are 
demanded  by  the  present  crisis.  The  one  con- 
cerns the  private  life  of  the  individual,  the  other 
the  group-life  of  the  Christian  commimity. 


Introduction  31 

As  to  the  private  life:  in  one  direction,  the 
Christian  worid  has  been  sufficiently  in- 
structed. One  would  not  dare  say  that  it  did 
its  duty,  but  certainly  unless  it  is  deaf  it 
knows  where  that  duty  lies.  This  is  the 
direction  of  practical  activity.  Social  Service 
is  the  word  of  the  hour,  and  the  constant 
message  of  the  pulpit  calls  people  to  devote 
themselves  to  it.  Optimism  sees  most  people 
obeying  the  call.  Nearly  all  serious-minded 
folk  give  a  large  portion  of  their  spare  time, 
not  to  amusement  or  self -culture,  but  to  one 
of  the  multiform  modem  ways  of  promoting 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  If  one  sometimes 
wonders  whether  it  was  meant  that  this 
Kingdom  should  be  promoted  by  sitting  on 
committees,  one  crushes  the  tmworthy  thought. 
If  a  good  deal  of  effort  is  amateurish  and 
wasted,  one  renews  one's  faith  that  aim  and 
effort  are  the  really  creative  things.  Splendid 
works  are  carried  on  effectively, — till  one 
measures  them  against  the  need  they  try  to 
meet.  And  better  perhaps  than  all  Church 
activities,  is  the  other  effect  of  the  ideal  of 
service:  the  socializing  of  the  professions.  In 
every  pursuit,  the  motive  of  service  can  b^ 


32  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

made  central.    If  it  cannot,  that  is  no  pursuit 
for  Christian  men. 

But  beyond  action,  lie  the  more  searching 
questions  connected  with  fimdamental  atti- 
tude toward  possessions,  toward  the  world. 
And  here  each  socially  enlightened  Christian 
must  judge  for  himself.  The  Chtuch,  catching 
up  with  her  more  progressive  members,  begins 
to  demand  the  application  of  Christian  ethics 
to  regions  once  left  to  the  control  of  automatic 
law,  like  buying  goods  and  investing  money. 
A  pioneer  excitement  attaches  to  the  pene- 
tration of  these  regions.  And  very  soon,  in 
reaction  from  the  difficulties  encountered 
there,  comes  the  obvious  suggestion,  since  the 
present  order  is  so  involved  in  wrong  that  to 
Christianize  it  is  at  best  a  task  of  infinite 
subtlety  and  delicacy,  and  at  worst  may 
prove  impossible, — ^why  not  leave  it  alto- 
gether? From  the  earliest  Christian  days, 
ardent  souls  have  yearned  for  a  complete 
renunciation  of  the  world.  Is  not  the  way 
out  a  new  Franciscanism,  which  shall  lure 
men  to  throw  away  all  that  others  hold 
precious  in  a  divine  madness,  and  to  abandon 
themselves  recklessly  to  love? 


Introduction  33 

If  it  could  be  done!  But  how  can  it?  The 
entire  repudiation  of  worldly  goods,  the 
severance  from  earthly  ties,  so  familiar  to 
exalted  and  eager  souls  in  the  Middle  Ages, — 
are  we  self -deceived  in  finding  it  harder  to 
compass  now  than  then?  Short  of  a  monastery 
or  a  desert,  neither  of  which  was  Francis's 
idea  or  the  idea  of  Jesus,  one  cannot  renounce 
the  world.  It  creeps  into  the  tissue  of  our 
simplest  clothing,  it  lurks  in  our  shelters,  it 
penetrates  otu*  food.  And  ought  one  to  try  to 
renounce  it?  Apart  from  the  basic  impossibil- 
ity of  the  thing,  apart  from  one's  weakness, 
two  obstacles  stand  in  the  way. 

The  first  is  our  honest  modem  disbelief  in 
asceticism.  We  no  longer  feel  the  world  to  be 
a  peril  or  an  evil,  we  find  in  it  the  Sacrament  of 
God's  Presence,  and  the  motive  driving  men  to 
withdraw  from  it  is  no  longer  plain.  Perhaps 
we  modems  are  making  a  mistake  here.  It  is 
conceivable  that  a  reaction  may  come,  and 
an  ascetic  revival,  perhaps  reaching  us  from 
the  East,  may  be  in  order.  But,  the  second 
obstacle  is  more  siurely  honorable,  for  it  is 
found  in  the  very  growth  of  social  feeling. 
Twentieth-century  minds  cannot  sympathize 


34  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

unreservedly  with  St.  Francis  flinging  his 
garments  in  his  father's  face;  they  cannot 
help  thinking  of  the  father!  The  tender 
duties,  that  held  Tolstoy  to  the  end  from  his 
heart's  desire,  hold  us  all.  This  is  not  weak- 
ness. It  is  the  growth  of  democracy,  making 
us  indifferent  to  saving  ourselves  by  ourselves, 
inhibiting  us  from  claiming  perfection  at  the 
cost  of  hurt  to  others.  We  are  all  involved 
together,  and  to  break  loose,  leaving  our  dear 
ones  in  the  net,  is  no  way  to  follow  Love. 
That  old  selfish  way,  which  ended  in  serenely 
creating  a  spiritual  aristocracy,  was  natural 
to  aristocratic  ages,  but  it  is  now  alien  to  our 
best  instincts.  We  no  longer  find  our  solution 
in  a  segregated  Christianity;  for  we  have 
learned  to  pray,  Thy  Kingdom  come  on  earth. 
Not  that  we  Christians  are  wholly  thrown 
back  by  any  means  on  self-indulgence  and 
conformity.  It  is  our  business  to  obey  the 
Church,  to  apply  her  now  specific  commands: 
We  are  to  profit  by  exploitation  as  little  as  we 
possibly  can;  to  simplify  our  lives  to  the 
farthest  feasible  degree;  to  practise  detach- 
ment, and  consecration,  in  the  interior  life  of 
the  soul.    But  we  must  tread  warily  lest  we 


Introduction  35 

tread  on  hearts;  and  in  seeking  the  far  vision 
we  may  not  neglect  the  primary  tendernesses 
which  also  are  of  God. 

But  just  as  the  old  line  of  escape  from  sin 
grows  more  obscure,  new  lines  are  opening. 
The  day  is  to  the  common  life,  the  common 
effort.  What  we  are  not  able  to  do  as  in- 
dividuals, we  may  do  all  together,  or  through 
group-action.  To  use  a  homely  simile,  many 
Christians  find  themselves  caught  on  the 
branches  of  a  great  tree,  the  tree  of  privilege. 
They  do  not  quite  know  how  to  climb  down, 
but  they  have  the  axe  of  the  law  in  their 
hands,  and  they  can  apply  themselves  to  saw- 
ing off  the  branch  they  sit  on.  No  less  than 
this,  probably,  is  demanded  of  them  by  their 
religion,  and  it  is  consoling  to  reflect  that, 
though  a  tumble  may  hurt,  the  ground  is  a 
good  place  after  all. 

Suppose  all  Church  members  brought  their 
allegiance  in  great  groups  to  movements  which 
aim  at  restoring  land  and  other  wealth  on 
equal  terms  to  all  men,  and  at  placing  the 
control  of  production  in  part  at  least  in  the 
hands  of  the  producers.  It  is  a  startling  hy- 
pothesis, but  it  is  not  inconceivable.    Already 


36  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

it  is  happening  in  a  measure.  The  Kingdom 
of  God  Cometh  not  with  observation,  and  it 
will  never  be  possible  to  estimate  the  direct 
share  of  Christian  idealism  in  recent  progress 
toward  industrial  democracy.  But  the  hour 
has  come  to  increase  that  share  dramatically 
and  visibly.  The  sight  of  Christendom  has 
surely  braced  and  sobered  Christian  thought. 
If  we  are  to  avoid  such  catastrophe  as  has 
fallen  on  our  neighbors,  we  must  immediately 
apply  Christianity  to  life,  we  must  try  to  re- 
store justice  in  America  at  the  roots  of  things. 
Our  prosperity,  won  at  such  fearful  cost  to 
other  nations,  gives  us  such  chance  at  expia- 
tion and  at  social  experiment  as  we  have 
never  had  before;  and  the  distinctive  contribu- 
tion of  religion  to  the  modem  crisis  is  to 
encourage  its  more  prosperous  disciples  to 
ally  themselves  with  the  tendencies  which  will 
impoverish  them  and  handicap  their  power. 
In  spite  of  all  discouraging  facts,  which  the 
following  papers  clearly  recognize,  the  Church 
is  beginning  to  say  brave  words.  It  is  for  her 
members  to  seal  them  with  brave  deeds. 


Introduction  37 

IV 

If  in  these  papers  the  note  of  criticism 
sounds  harsh  at  times,  let  it  not  be  the  last 
to  linger  on  the  ear.  Not  for  a  moment  can  a 
child  of  the  Church  forget  the  faithfulness  of 
the  "  Mighty  Mother*'  in  fulfilling  her  primary 
duty.  That  duty  is  to  keep  open  the  channel 
between  the  temporal  and  the  Eternal,  through 
sacraments,  through  the  Word  of  God,  through 
all  those  disciplines  of  the  interior  life  sanctified 
by  the  experience  of  questing  generations.  Un- 
nimibered  souls  fed  at  her  Altars  day  by  day 
by  the  Bread  of  Pilgrims,  will  attest  that  she 
is  true  to  her  charge.  To  ignore  this  secret 
sacred  work,  to  throw  it  into  the  backgrotmd 
while  impatient  stress  is  put  wholly  on  Church 
responsibiHty  for  solving  social  problems, 
would  be  to  join  the  forces  of  Anti-Christ. 
The  enduring  task  and  glory  of  the  Church 
is  to  foster  in  man  the  consciousness  of  God 
and  to  help  him  to  union  with  his  Maker. 

But  salvation,  which  is  health  and  whole- 
ness, can  be  won  by  no  man  alone.  Social  ac- 
tion becomes  the  swift  correlative  of  spiritual 
vision.    The  regenerate  man  is  the  citizen  of 


38  The  Church  zund  the  Hour 

that  Kingdom  of  Justice  which  is  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  And  as  perpetual  intercession  rises 
in  the  words  of  the  Lord's  own  prayer,  for  the 
coming  of  this  kingdom  on  earth,  our  social 
passion  becomes,  as  it  were,  incorporated  with 
our  very  conception  of  God.  For  He  whom  we 
adore  is  God  on  the  Rood  of  the  world.  It  is 
the  God  involved  in  the  process  of  time,  in 
the  flux  of  mortal  history:  the  God  defeated, 
crucified.  Whom  we,  by  His  mysterious  will 
must  aid  if  He  is  to  come  to  His  own.  Our 
hands,  alas,  have  nailed  Him  to  that  cross; 
without  our  help  He  cannot,  because  He  will 
not,  descend  from  it ;  and  to  aid  Him  we  must 
climb  to  His  side.  Always  men  try  to  evade, 
to  find  ways  of  consecrating  life  without 
sacrificing  it.  And  always,  in  measure  as 
they  are  near  to  Christ,  they  fail.  By  the 
cross  **the  world  is  crucified  unto  me,  and 
I  unto  the  world.'*  If  the  phrase  is  to  re- 
gain a  lost  reality,  it  must  be  translated  into 
social  terms.  The  *' world'*  to  which  it  refers, 
to  which  it  bids  us  be  crucified,  must  be  the 
world  of  the  banker,  of  the  merchant;  of  the 
solid  business  men  who  are  the  support  of 
parishes;  of  the  ladies  from  the  leisure  class 


Introduction  39 

who  carry  on  the  work  of  the  Church.  Love, 
seeking  to  save,  saving  if  need  be  by  dying, 
must  be  the  inward  law,  expressed  in  outward 
life,  related  to  actual  present  conditions,  of 
every  soul  in-oned  with  Christ  in  the  work 
of  world-redemption. 

In  proportion  as  the  Church  can  show  how 
such  sacrificial  love  can  manifest  itself  through 
the  present  industrial  and  political  situation, 
she  will  furnish  the  moral  and  spiritual  leader- 
ship for  the  lack  of  which  modem  radicalism 
despises  her,  and  the  absence  of  which  in  that 
very  radicalism  makes  the  radical  movement, 
to  a  Christian,  superficial  and  suspect. 


THE  ALLEGED  FAILURE  OF  THE 
CHURCH  TO  MEET  THE  SOCIAL 
EMERGENCY^ 

(a  paper  read  at  the  church  congress  held  in 
norfolk,  va.,  may,  i916) 


Be  it  said  at  the  outset  that  the  title  of 
this  paper  is  not  of  my  choosing.  I  should 
have  left  out  the  word  *' alleged/' 

The  failure  of  the  Church  seems  patent 
to-day  when  one  looks  at  the  spectacle  of  the 
world.  Over  in  Europe,  they  say,  many 
crosses  have  been  spared  in  the  general  de- 
vastation,— so  strangely  spared  that  whispers 
of  miracle  pass  about.  On  the  roads  over 
which  move  grim  processions  marching  to 
kill,  sad  processions  retreating  to  suffer,  the 
Christ  looks  down: 

« Reprinted  from  The  Yale  Review,  January,  19 17. 
40 


The  Church  eind  the  Hour  41 

"His  sad  face  on  the  Cross  sees  only  this, 
After  the  passion  of  two  thousand  years.'* 

Sometimes  the  figure  stands  unscathed  when 
the  Church  that  sheltered  it  is  a  ruin.  Here 
is  such  a  picture: 

"All  that  is  left  of  the  building  is  a  few 
white  arches.  Leaning  forward  from  what  re- 
mains of  the  wall  at  one  end  is  a  pale  Figure, 
with  arms  widely  extended,  a  wreath  of 
thorns  on  its  head.  Shells  have  smashed 
away  from  it  the  wooden  cross  to  which  the 
arms  were  nailed ;  they  seem  now  opened  wide 
in  a  gesture  of  entreaty.  .  .  .  One  must 
admit  the  ironic  contrast  of  a  Christ  un- 
scathed in  a  shattered  Church.  The  per- 
sistence of  the  Figure,  the  dissolution  of  the 
fabric!  The  Church  is  man's  interpretation 
of  Christianity:  but  the  Church  has  disap- 
peared in  this  war  of  Christians;  the  Christ 
remains." 

So  the  onlooker,  expressing  a  widely  spread 
iattitude.  And  what  can  those  say  to  whom 
the  Church  is  infinitely  more  than  "man's 
interpretation  of  Christianity"?  To  them 
also,  are  not  these  Calvaries  looking  down  on 


42  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

battle-fields  a  tragic  symbol,  not  of  war  only 
but  of  the  civilized  world? 

If  these  years  teach  anything  new,  it  is 
that  civilization  per  se  has  little  especially 
admirable  about  it.  Civilization  is  no  end 
in  itself,  as  men  have  assumed  it  to  be;  it  is 
merely  an  instnmient,  to  be  turned  to  use 
either  by  the  forces  of  evil  or  by  the  forces 
of  good.  Have  the  forces  of  good,  led  by 
the  churches,  yet  captured  it?  The  answer, 
No,  rises  confused  but  unmistakable;  the  war 
has  brought  into  terrible  relief  the  persistent 
fact,  that  the  Church,  divided,  hesitant, 
backward,  has  apparently  no  contribution 
to  make,  as  an  official  body,  either  toward 
the  healing  of  the  nations  or  toward  the 
healing  of  social  disorders. 

In  Europe,  churches  are  in  use  as  observa- 
tion-posts ;  they  serve  as  shelter  to  the  woimded 
or  the  homeless;  from  time  to  time  the  One 
Sacrifice  is  pleaded  piteously  from  their 
ruined  altars.  But  in  collective  effort  to 
prevent  the  horror  or  to  end  it,  the  Church 
has  been  helpless.  In  effort  to  dc-Paganize 
industrial  and  social  life,  is  she  not  equally 
helpless  the  world  over?     Despite  the  frequent 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  43 

facile  assumption  that  Christianity  has  under- 
gone a  great  social  revival,  the  reply  must 
be,  Yes.  Religion  has  consoled  the  bereaved, 
it  has  strengthened  the  dying,  it  has  established 
vast  works  of  philanthropy ;  but  for  any  states- 
manlike attempt  to  evolve  justice  between 
nations  or  classes  by  the  application  of  the 
law  of  Christ,  men  have  looked  to  it  in  vain. 

Last  December  I  saw  a  strange  Christmas 
tree.  It  was  in  the  home  of  a  German  friend, 
whose  tree  is  usually  lovely  with  the  radiant 
symbols  of  the  Christ-Child.  This  year,  no 
star,  no  angel,  graced  the  summit;  there  was 
no  manger  at  the  base,  with  adoring  shep- 
herds and  sweet  Mother-Maid.  The  tradi- 
tional eagle  of  Odin  spread  his  wings  on  the 
topmost  twig,  and  the  snake,  whom  our 
Northern  forefathers  saw  at  the  roots  of  the 
world-tree  Ygdrasil,  coiled  with  red  tongue 
poisonously  stuck  out,  high  among  the 
branches.  ^'The  tree  has  always  belonged 
to  the  snake;  it  was  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  the  Christ-Child  had  killed  him,"  said 
my  friend  bitterly. 

No,  let  us  not  say  "alleged.**  "Alleged** 
has  a  defiant  note.     It  calls  for  an  apologia, 


44  The  Church  Euid  the  Hour 

a  rebuttal.  But  in  this  year  of  grace, — 
and  sin — excuse  is  no  attitude  for  the  Church 
or  her  children.  Corporate  penitence  be- 
hooves us  rather.  We  belong  on  our  knees 
confessing  our  wrong-doing,  not  on  our  feet 
defending  ourselves. 


II 


The  normal  tissue  of  our  national  life  has 
obviously  not  been  woven  by  Christianity. 
Our  economic  and  industrial  order  is  the  nat- 
ural outgrowth  of  forces  with  which  religion 
has  had  nothing  whatever  to  do.  Many  of 
these  forces  are  to-day  generally  regarded  as 
obsolescent;  and  the  indictment  against  the 
Church  is  that  she  does  nothing  in  particular 
to  hasten  their  disappearance. 

It  is  an  indictment  hard  to  disprove,  but 
not  particularly  hard  to  explain.  Though 
Christians  be  penitent,  they  must  also  regard 
the  situation  with  common  sense,  and  rec- 
ognize the  fallacy  that  mingles  with  truth 
in  radical  attacks  on  the  Church. 

These  attacks  habitually  speak  of  the  Church 
as  if  she  were  a  separate  body,  responsible  for 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  45 

converting  State  and  society.  The  truth  is 
more  subtle.  The  Church  is  not  a  separate 
body,  it  is  an  interpenetrating  force.  The 
baptized  individuals  who  compose  it  are  to  a 
large  degree  the  same  who  compose  State  and 
society,  and  the  Church  in  her  corporate 
action  can  never  take  a  stand  which  her 
members  in  their  other  capacities  would 
repudiate. 

Suppose  five  people  constitute  the  Church 
in  a  certain  village.  Henry  is  a  mill-owner, 
Patrick  a  hand  in  his  factory,  Mary  is  Pat- 
rick's wife,  John  a  clerk  in  the  bank,  Kate  is 
John's  daughter,  married  to  a  stockholder  in 
Henry's  mill.  Problem:  to  gain  from  these 
people  a  corporate  mind  concerning  the  wage- 
scale  in  that  mill.  One  other  person  must  be 
added:  Peter,  the  parson.  Now  there  is 
much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  an  old  custom  by 
which  the  Church  in  that  community  meant 
just  Peter  and  nobody  else.  That  custom, 
however,  is  obsolete  among  us;  and  regret  is 
less,  because  it  was  partly  based  on  the  assump- 
tion that  Peter  was  a  perfectly  disinterested 
person  as  well  as  a  specialist  in  morals.  Un- 
fortimately,  Peter's  social  relations  are  mainly 


46  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

with  Henry  and  his  family;  moreover,  he 
derives  his  subsistence  from  Henry.  I  believe 
this  fact  does  not  always  prejudice  him,  but 
it  does  make  his  situation  difficult,  especially 
as  he  uses  most  of  his  salary  to  educate  some 
heathen  in  the  far  Black  Coimtry. 

And  the  community  expects  the  Church  to 
solve  the  labor-problem! 

Now  of  course  a  large  share  of  responsibility, 
though  not  the  whole,  does  devolve  on  Peter. 
The  clergy  must  guide  us.  But  the  point  is 
that  the  biisiness  of  the  Church,  as  repre- 
sented by  Peter  and  his  flock,  is  not  to  work 
from  outside  on  a  recalcitrant  world,  but  to 
accomplish  the  far  more  difficult  task  of 
converting  itself, — a  task  so  difficult  that  it 
would  never  be  accomplished  save  by  the  aid 
of  supernatural  grace. 

In  this  interpenetration  of  Church  and 
world,  the  reason  is  foimd  for  that  lagging 
timidity  which  keeps  the  Church  as  an  institu- 
tion in  the  rear  rather  than  in  the  van  of  social 
progress.  We  shall  never  again  see  a  Church 
dictating  terms  to  the  secular  world,  unless 
we  return  to  the  discarded  method  of  trusting 
her  decisions  to  a  hierarchy  instead  of  to  the 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  47 

whole  body  of  the  faithful;  and  that  was 
not  a  particularly  successful  method,  for  ever 
since  the  Gift  of  Constantine,  clergy  as  well 
as  laity  have  remained  a  part  of  the  very 
order  which  they  would  transform.  It  would 
therefore  seem  hopeless  to  expect  from  the 
Church  a  standard  immeasurably  ahead  of  her 
time.  The  positions  she  takes  can  hardly  be 
quite  out  of  reach  of  the  common  mind,  for 
the  common  mind  has  dictated  them. 

How  disparate  the  elements  are  which  com- 
pose this  mind  is  evident  as  soon  as  any 
common  action  is  sought.  To  prove  the  slow 
growth  of  the  social  sense  it  is  only  necessary 
to  try  praying  together  without  falling  back 
on  liturgies.  Union  in  prayer  must  surely 
precede  imion  in  action;  but  in  any  praying 
group  concerned  with  the  social  situation, 
each  member  will  try  to  press  his  own  specific, 
and  the  formulae  may  tend  ludicrously  to 
neutraHze  each  other.  Here  is  a  petition 
that  the  socialist  party  may  gain  votes,  here 
one  for  the  suppression  of  socialism;  here 
pleads  a  suffragist,  here  an  anti.  And  pre- 
paredness! What  a  Babel  of  voices,  all 
perfectly    good    Christian    voices,    has    been 


48  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

biizzing  of  late  around  the  Throne!  That 
they  all  may  be  One,  prayed  Otir  Blessed 
Lord;  but  He  never  meant  one  in  opinion. 


Ill 


Yet  when  the  very  utmost  is  allowed  for 
contradictions  in  Christian  thought,  when 
inclusiveness  is  pushed  to  the  limit,  it  will  be 
found  that  there  is  a  region  below  opinion, 
deeper  than  dissent.  In  certain  basic  social 
principles  unity  must  obtain,  otherwise  the 
Church  must  simply  cease  to  be.  These 
principles  are  so  plain  that,  once  stated.  Chris- 
tians have  no  option.  They  are  indissolubly 
related  to  the  peculiar  treasures  which  the 
Church  exists  to  guard.  Who,  nurtured  on 
the  Sacrament  of  Brotherhood,  can  stay 
contented  with  our  present  social  order  when 
once  eyes  have  been  opened?  Who  can  really 
read  the  Gospels  and  fail  to  find  them  a 
disturbing  force?  In  the  intimacies  of  Chris- 
tian experience,  in  the  very  sanctuary  of 
faith,  men  seeking  to  learn  the  mind  of  Christ 
discover  over  and  over  the  revolutionary 
nature  of  true  discipleship : 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  49 

''Where'er  His  chariot  takes  its  way 
The  gates  of  death  let  in  the  day.*' 

This  has  always  been  the  case.  However 
conservative  the  Church  has  been  in  her 
corporate  and  official  capacity,  radicals  in  all 
ages  have  been  nursed  at  her  breasts.  But  it  is 
more  the  case  to-day  than  at  any  previous 
time  since  the  first  century;  for  modem 
Christendom  has  awakened  with  a  start  of 
recognition  to  the  historic  purpose  of  her 
Master, — the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth.  This  means  the  moralizing 
of  life  in  its  ultimate  practical  relations. 
Through  the  roar  of  battle  and  of  factory, 
the  Master's  summoning  Voice  sounds  stem. 

Moreover,  while  the  Church  has  lagged 
behind,  great  lay  movements  of  unrest  and 
of  reconstruction  have  arisen  and  clamor  for 
allegiance.  She  has  not  originated  these 
movements;  we  must  accept  the  fact  that 
her  official  spirit  cannot  be  adventurous. 
But  when  other  adventurers  have  blazed  the 
trail,  she  will  be  eternally  disgraced  if  she 
does  not  follow. 

Discrimination    is    necessary.     There    are 


50  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

phases  in  these  movements  on  which  she  can 
have  no  convictions.  To  measures  like  suf- 
frage or  anti-suffrage,  to  theories  like  socialism 
or  syndicalism  or  single-tax,  the  Church  can- 
not commit  herself,  though  her  members  will 
naturally  use  their  Christian  ideals  as  a 
touchstone  for  all  such  propositions.  There 
are  other  phases  where  her  inaction  would  be 
a  scandal  and  a  crime.  Perhaps  the  type  of 
social  reforms  which  Christianity  must  en- 
dorse, or  perish,  might  be  described  by  the 
phrase,  ''preliminaries  to  sanctification.'*  It  is 
an  awkward  phrase;  but  it  obviously  covers 
all  measures  aiming  directly  at  the  preserva- 
tion of  personality;  it  would  apply  to  move- 
ments, legislative  or  private,  demanding  social 
sacrifice  and  self-control.  It  would  include 
every  statement  in  the  admirable  program 
of  the  Federation  of  Churches.* 

Many  points  in  this  program  deal  with 
industrial  conditions,  and  with  these,  sanc- 
tification  may  at  first  sight  appear  to  have 
little  to  do.  But  a  moment's  thought  shows 
that  it  has  a  great  deal.  The  Church,  like 
her  Master,  is  in  a  way  more  concerned  over 
the  spiritual  state  of  the  prosperous  than  over 

»  See  p.  7  ff. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  51 

that  of  the  poor,  and  her  anxiety  about  social 
justice  springs  largely  from  the  fact  that 
so  long  as  the  rich  and  fortunate  countenance 
unbrotherly  things,  sanctification  is  impossible 
for  them.  It  may  be  good  for  the  soul  of 
Patrick  to  subsist  on  a  starvation  wage,  but 
it  is  very  bad  for  the  soul  of  Henry  the  mill- 
owner  to  pay  him  that  wage.  It  is  spiritual 
suicide  for  the  possessors  of  privileges  to 
rest,  until  such  privileges  become  the  common 
lot.  This  truth  is  what  the  Church  should 
hold  relentlessly  before  men's  eyes;  it  is  what 
makes  indifference  to  social  readjustments 
impossible  to  her  shepherding  love. 

One  does  not  see  the  sanctified  man,  for 
instance,  defending  his  property  rights  with 
passion.  A  proposal  has  been  made  in  a 
report  of  the  Industrial  Relations  Commission 
that  private  bequests  be  limited  to  a  million 
dollars.  This  is  a  reasonable  and  moderate 
proposal.  It  does  not  attack  private  pro- 
perty, but  merely  limits  it  at  a  point  far 
above  what  most  people  reach,  and  no  Chris- 
tian mind  would  surely  stoop  to  the  meanness 
of  claiming  that  it  would  unduly  lessen 
incentive.     It  would  deliver  many  men  from 


52  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

fearful  temptations, — a  result  for  which  we 
are  told  to  pray.  Incidentally,  non-Christian 
moralists  are  pleading  for  self-limitation  in 
wealth  as  the  next  step  in  the  higher  ethics. 
Now  in  view  of  Christ's  persistent  feehng 
that  it  is  dangerous  to  be  rich, — a  feeling 
that  no  subtle  exegesis  has  ever  succeeded 
in  explaining  away, — one  might  have  expected 
to  see  His  disciples,  His  Church,  eagerly  wel- 
come the  plan  and  press  it  with  enthusiasm. 
Did  one  see  this  spectacle?     One  did  not. 

Again,  no  Christian  can  remain  indifferent 
or  non-partisan  toward  movements  for  the 
protection  of  the  weak.  If  the  Church  really 
possessed  that  homely  family  sense  so  touch- 
ingly  expressed  in  the  collect  for  Good  Friday, 
most  social  problems  would  be  solved.  It 
may  be  materialistic  to  object  to  external 
poverty  and  sordidness ;  but  no  one  has  a  right 
to  say  so  unless  he  is  prepared  to  welcome 
such  conditions  for  his  own  relatives.  It 
may  be  superficial  to  look  to  legislation  as  a 
cure  for  social  evils;  but  the  people  who 
think  so  must  be  prepared  with  other  cures. 
They  must  not  be  permitted  to  fall  back  on 
charity,    whether    "scrimped    and    iced"    or 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  53 

warm  and  efficient;  that  solution  is  far  out- 
grown. Neither  may  they  dismiss  the  subject 
with  the  sententious  remark  that  the  one  thing 
necessary  is  a  change  of  heart.  Necessary? 
Certainly!  Change  of  heart  is  the  beginning, 
it  is  not  the  end.  Changed  hearts  all  aroimd, 
by  hundreds  and  by  thousands,  are  trying 
to  express  their  conversion  in  social  action. 
Has  the  Church  no  guidance  to  give  to  hearts 
when  they  have  been  changed? 

If  such  matters  as  those  indicated  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Church,  then  the 
Church  has  nothing  to  do  with  righteousness. 
The  hour  has  come  for  Christian  thought  to 
give  definite  sanction  to  the  new  social  ethic 
that  has  been  developing  for  the  last  half 
century.  The  check  by  common  will  on 
private  greed,  the  care  for  public  health,  the 
protection  of  childhood  and  manhood,  the 
securing  of  fair  leisure  from  the  monotonies  of 
modem  labor,  form  a  program  hardly  to  be 
called  radical  any  longer.  It  is  accredited  by 
all  the  progressive  forces  of  the  community, 
it  forms  the  background  of  respectable  modem 
thinking.  But  it  has  not  yet  emerged  into 
respectable  doing.     That  is  another  matter; 


54  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

involving  effort  and  sacrifice.  Is  not  this 
just  where  the  Church  might  come  in?  She 
has  missed  the  chance  at  initiative;  the  chance 
of  performance  remains  with  her. 

Let  us  not  for  a  moment  tolerate  the  con- 
temptuous excuse  for  her  too  frequent  silence, 
proffered  by  the  radicals, — that  her  resources 
come  from  the  sinners.  Perhaps  there  are 
no  sinners;  perhaps  there  are  only  good  men, 
blind.  But  assuredly  they  are  very  blind. 
Is  the  Church  habitually  giving  them  help 
to  see?  Is  Church  membership  a  guarantee 
that  in  time  of  stress  a  man  will  act  on  a  higher 
level  than  mere  business  honor?  A  group 
of  manufacturers  fights  organized  labor,  only 
to  acknowledge,  when  the  strike  is  won,  that 
a  rise  was  well  warranted  by  the  profits. 
Confronted  by  this  disgraceful  sight,  does  any 
one  think  to  enquire  how  many  of  these 
employers  were  Church-members? 

The  standards  of  the  Church  in  this  matter 
of  social  morality  should  be  no  niggling  mini- 
mum. They  should  be  bold  and  explicit. 
She  should  make  every  Christian  woman 
ashamed  of  herself  so  long  as  she  neglects  to 
secure  a  cleaner  conscience  by  buying  Con- 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  55 

stimer's  League  goods.  She  should  make 
every  Christian  man  ashamed  of  himself,  so 
long  as  he  is  unable  or  unwilling  to  pay  a 
living  wage  to  his  least  employee.  She  should 
bid  dividend  holders  be  prepared  to  suffer 
rather  than  to  profit  by  the  exploitation  of 
the  laborer.  Shrunken  dividends  can  cause 
much  distress,  but  as  a  class,  by  and  large,  the 
dividend  holders  are  better  off  than  the  wage- 
earners.  Poorest  first  is  Christian  law.  Just 
wages  should  be  the  first  consideration,  rea- 
sonable dividends  the  second,  personal  profits 
for  the  directors  the  last.  To  reverse  the 
order  is  usual  nowadays;  but  it  is  Pagan. 

And  is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  where  a 
moral  issue  is  plain,  the  Church  might  even 
occasionally  get  a  little  ahead  of  the  com- 
mimity  conscience,  instead  of  always  lagging 
a  little  in  the  rear? 

Concerning  that  matter  of  dividends,  for 
example.  There  is  a  growing  healthy  touchi- 
ness everywhere  about  the  sources  of  wealth. 
In  England  feeble  protests  even  arise, — oh, 
the  shame  of  it! — against  bishops'  holding 
shares  in  breweries.  As  social  imagination 
quickens,  it  becomes  harder  to  accept  income 


56  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

without  knowing  what  that  income  connotes. 
Some  radicals,  to  be  sure,  do  not  believe  in 
the  principles  of  interest  at  all ;  and  it  does  no 
harm  to  dream  of  a  day  when  the  complex 
system  involving  it  will  be  replaced  by  a  more 
direct  relation  between  services  and  rewards, 
class  distinctions  vanishing  in  consequence. 
But  in  the  meantime  many  people  must 
continue  to  live  on  the  proceeds  from  stocks 
and  bonds;  and  it  is  reasonable  to  wish  to 
be  siH-e  that  the  money  has  not  been  gathered 
at  the  cost  of  cruelty  or  graft. 

To  profit  by  conditions  which  leave  one 
uneasy  is  demoralizing  and  dangerous.  A 
quarter  century  ago,  much  uneasiness  concen- 
trated itself  among  women  upon  the  morale  of 
buying;  to  meet  it  arose  the  Consumers' 
League.  To-day  the  Christian  stockholders 
of  the  United  States  begin  to  demand  a  White 
List  of  investments.  Such  a  list  if  heeded 
would  introduce  a  new  principle  into  investing, 
quite  apart  from  the  size  or  security  of  the 
dividend.  It  would  be  a  terrible  nuisance. 
It  would  call  for  real  sacrifice.  Dozens  of 
cogent  reasons  prove  it  impossible.  In  famous 
words,  I  am  not  concerned  with  the  possibility 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  57 

of  it, — only  with  the  necessity.  Perhaps  it 
cannot  be  done,  but  that  is  a  serious  conclu- 
sion to  reach.  For  the  only  Christian  alter- 
native to  moralizing  the  present  order  is  to 
abolish  it,  and  if  the  Church  cannot  accomplish 
the  first  alternative,  she  must  address  herself 
with  all  speed  to  the  second — ^which  spells 
revolution. 

Obviously,  the  Church  is  not  herself  com- 
petent to  draw  up  such  a  white  list  of  in- 
vestments. Only  trained  experts  could  carry 
through  so  delicate,  so  intensely  difficult  a 
task.  But  I  submit  that  it  is  for  her  to  crys- 
talHze  and  encourage  the  new  demand  in  the 
name  of  the  torn  consciences  of  her  children. 
Through  pulpits,  forums,  Simday-schools, 
guilds,  conferences,  she  can  hold  it  clear 
before  the  public  eye.  Organized  groups  of 
Christian  stockholders,  studying  the  problem, 
feeling  their  way  toward  concerted  action, 
rise  before  the  fancy.  And  why  could  not 
the  Church  appoint  her  own  commission  of 
experts?  She  raises  great  funds:  fimds  for 
philanthropy,  for  missions,  for  the  relief  of  her 
aged  clergy.  Why  not  a  fund  to  render  her 
more   fortunate   children    secure    that    their 


$8  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

income  is  not  drawn  from  Sunday  labor,  child- 
labor,  or  any  unfair  exploitation  of  the  workers? 
The  mere  existence  of  such  a  commission 
would  give  her  new  status  among  reformers 
and  among  those  alienated  from  her.  It  would 
serve  as  a  visible  witness  that  organized 
Christianity  was  in  earnest.  It  would  more- 
over tend  automatically  to  establish  the 
standard  it  approved,  for  it  would  offer  strong 
moral  support  to  the  many  in  the  yoimger 
generation  of  employers  and  financiers  whose 
hearts  are  set  on  the  improvement  of  industrial 
conditions. 

IV 

Schemes  are  easy  to  propose.  This  one 
calls  for  limitless  wisdom,  intelligence,  tact,  and 
pluck.  And  all  the  while  the  smooth  voices 
of  the  world  proclaim  the  status  quo  so  pleas- 
ant,— ^and  insinuate  so  plausibly  that  questions 
of  this  sort  are  irrelevant  to  religion! 

The  world  has  always  taken  the  same  line. 
The  Church  used  to  solve  the  problem  of 
standards  more  easily  in  some  ways  than  she 
can  now.  Formerly  as  always  she  worked  in 
two  fashions, — ^by  permeating  the   ideals  of 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  59 

society,  and  by  contradicting  them.  A  level 
of  conduct  slightly  higher  than  if  there  had 
been  no  Church  at  all  was  accepted  without 
qualms  for  the  majority;  but  severe  Counsels 
of  Perfection  shone  aloft,  luring  the  valiant 
to  follow.  And  follow  they  did  in  throngs, — 
Regulars,  Third  Orders,  Confraternities, — the 
chivalry  of  Christ,  aiming  at  literal  obedience 
to  Him,  vowed  to  conduct  that  contradicted 
at  vital  points  the  standards  arotmd  them. 
We  are  all  for  permeation  nowadays,  and 
perhaps, — though  the  claim  is  timid,— religion 
really  permeates  a  Uttle  more  than  it  did. 
But  there  would  be  difficulty  in  reasserting 
the  coimsels.  Mixing  up  mediocrity  with 
democracy  in  our  usual  way,  we  have  grown 
insensibly  to  such  feeling  for  the  common 
man  that  we  distrust  demands  which  he  is  not 
likely  to  approve.  Also,  the  asceticism  which 
held  that  holiness  must  repudiate  life  has 
yielded  to  enthusiasm  for  life  in  its  fullness. 
These  instincts  are  in  their  way  creditable 
enough;  but  they  result  in  a  slackening  of 
Christian  ethics.  As  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
said  years  ago,  religion  suffers  from  diffusion 
at  the  cost  of  intensity. 


6o  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

What  accredited  type  of  piety  did  the 
United  States  inherit  from  the  last  century? 
Suave-mannered,  pleasant-voiced;  endanger- 
ing nothing  in  particular,  an  ornament  to  the 
Sunday  pews;  devoted  to  good  causes  in 
proportion  to  their  remoteness,  intent  on 
promoting  safe  philanthropies  and  foreign 
missions,  but,  so  far  as  home  affairs  are  con- 
cerned, ignorant  alike  of  the  ardors  of  the 
mystic  and  the  heroisms  of  the  reformer.  A 
queer  type  of  Christianity  if  one  thinks  of  it, 
— cheerfully  assimiing  that  what  is  innocently 
agreeable  is  religious.  Agonies  of  the  social 
conscience  deprecated  in  the  name  of  spiritual- 
ity, agonies  of  the  inward  life  yet  more  depre- 
cated in  the  name  of  sanity.  No  agonies  at 
all,  if  you  please:  careless  dependence  rather 
on  an  affectionate  God,  confusedly  mixed 
with  a  sentimental  love  of  scenery.  Parents 
more  concerned  with  hygiene  than  with  salva- 
tion for  their  offspring;  sacrifice  relegated  to 
the  foreign  field,  or  to  imderpaid  social 
workers.  A^  domestic  religion,  mid-Victorian 
in  effect,  calculated  to  make  life  pleasant  in 
the  family  circle, — but  curiously  at  ease  in 
Zion. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour"  6i 

That  was  about  what  Christianity  meant  in 
many  a  home  three  years  ago. 

Then  came  the  war,  with  its  appeal  for 
devotion  to  the  uttermost;  and  the  peoples  of 
Europe  responded  with  a  sort  of  sacred  joy. 
They  obey  the  call  of  governments  to  destroy 
fellow-men  at  any  personal  cost  in  the  name  of 
patriotism;  and  their  readiness  puts  to  shame 
the  failure  of  the  Church  to  enlist  them  for  the 
protection  of  manhood,  in  the  holier  Name  of 
Christ. 

The  excuse  for  the  contrast  is  of  course 
that  men  will  always  be  ready  to  defend  ancient 
sanctities;  it  requires  imagination  as  well  as 
courage  to  break  new  ways  for  Love  to  enter. 
Yet  how  tempting  to  picture  a  new  crusade, 
that  should  win  for  Christ  the  whole  sphere 
of  social  and  industrial  relations!  Here  is 
the  Adventure  of  the  waiting  world ;  and  the 
Church  should  call  men  to  it  with  a  trumpet. 

In  the  great  strange  years  to  come,  wilbshe. 
call  them ;  will  she  guide  them?  On  the  answer 
lies  the  salvation  of  civilized  life.  Battle- 
smoke  overhangs  those  years:  it  drifts  across 
the  narrow  seas,  so  blinding  that  we  in  America 
cannot  discern  our  future.     But  this  is  sure, 


62  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

that  after  the  war  old  evils  will  be  fiercer  than 
ever,  while  aspirations  toward  righteousness 
also  will  be  fired  with  a  new  intensity.  Reali- 
ties become  masked  with  the  advance  of 
civilization.  Many  masks  have  fallen  now, 
many  conventions  are  destroyed.  The  social 
order  is  seen  stark  naked:  it  is  not  a  lovely 
sight.  In  passing,  one  may  notice  that  the 
convulsion  which  has  stripped  himianity,  was 
not  caused  by  the  radical  forces  once  so 
dreaded,  but,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say, 
by  the  Devil  himself,  masquerading  as  gentle- 
man, patriot,  and  diplomatist.  In  the  hideous 
glare  of  the  firing,  it  is  possible  to  see  Mars 
and  Mammon,  twin  supporters  of  the  old 
CapitaHstic  order,  rushing  on  their  own 
destruction. 

This  is  the  hotir  of  opporttmity;  this  is  the 
hour  of  the  Church.  In  the  last  fifty  years 
she  has  accomplished  a  great  preparation,  by 
her  rediscovery  of  the  purpose  of  Jesus.  Few 
and  hesitant,  however,  have  been  her  attempts 
to  realize  that  purpose,  to  strive  boldly, 
through  profoimd  labors  of  readjustment  and 
reconstruction,  to  establish  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  the  kingdom  of  love,  on  earth.    Perhaps 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  63 

one  cause  of  her  semi-paralysis  has  been  her 
failure  to  recognize  that  the  central  incident 
in  the  process  of  establishing  the  kingdom 
must  always  be  a  Cross. 

If  civilization,  with  its  science,  its  culture, 
its  thousand  graces  of  heart  and  mind,  is  not 
to  be  abandoned  to  the  powers  of  evil,  the 
revolutionary  principle  of  love  must  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  practical  basis  for  all  htunan 
relations,  industrial  and  national. 


But,  for  the  Christian,  what  a  tremendous 
IF! 

The  central  question  will  not  down:  Has 
religion  anything  to  do  with  civilization? 
Perhaps  the  age  is  sweeping  to  catastrophic 
end, — and  in  that  case  the  true  aim  of  the 
Christian  is  not  to  transform  the  social  order, 
but  to  transcend  it.  So  thought  the  Early 
Chturch:  her  Christianity  was  largely  im- 
interested  in  secular  affairs,  and  her  disciples, 
adopting  an  od  interim  policy  toward  the 
evil  world  from  which  they  had  been  saved, 
awaited,  patient,  himible,  the  coming  of  the 


64  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

Son  of  Man.  *'Even  so,  come,  Lord  Jesus!" 
That  last  prayer  of  the  Scripture  canon  is 
still  the  final  prayer  on  Christian  lips;  and 
still  the  echo  of  the  Lord's  own  question  stings 
the  heart:  When  the  Son  of  Man  cometh, 
shall  He  find  faith  on  the  earth? 

Trust  in  progress  has  received  a  shock  of 
late.  But  even  before  the  war,  a  strong  cur- 
rent in  the  religious  world  was  considering  it 
an  illusion,  and  setting  toward  those  Apoca- 
lyptic hopes  always  accompanied  with  other- 
worldly fatalism.  Books  like  Hugh  Benson's 
Lord  of  the  World,  and  the  Russian  Solovyof's 
brilliant  War  Progress  and  the  End  of  History y 
expressed  the  curious  idea  that  the  modem 
humanitarian  movement,  if  it  were  not  Anti- 
Christ  himself,  was  at  least  a  preparation 
for  Anti-Christ;  talk  concerning  the  Second 
Advent  was  revived  in  imexpected  quarters, 
and  mysticism,  with  its  stress  on  the  interior 
life  as  the  only  matter  of  importance,  entered 
its  ancient  claim  in  new  and  lovely  forms. 

Perhaps  few  people  hold  explicitly  the  be- 
lief in  an  apocalyptic  as  opposed  to  a  social 
type  of  Christianity.  But  this  is  the  extreme 
of  an  instinctive  reaction.    While  social  Chris- 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  65 

tianity,  weak  and  young,  reaches  out  pleading 
arms  for  help,  suspicion  of  it  has  set  in.  Grow- 
ing opposition  threatens  between  two  Christian 
schools,  one  humanitarian,  philanthropic,  even 
sociaUstic,  stressing  the  establishment  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth;  the  other  mystic, 
individualistic,  intent  exclusively  on  the  devel- 
opment of  spiritual  faculty,  on  the  release  of 
eternity  in  Time.  This  last  school,  I  suppose, 
would  not  oppose  temporal  works  of  mercy 
when  they  clamored  to  be  done;  but  it  would 
take  slight  interest  in  attacking  those  hidden 
wrongs  basic  to  the  present  social  order. 
No  white  list  of  investments  needed  for  its 
followers! 

Something  in  most  of  us  shares  the  distaste 
for  social  Christianity.  And  no  wonder. 
Cant  about  social  service  fills  the  air.  The 
complacent  yotmg  make  it  an  excuse  for  the 
neglect  of  penitence  and  devotion.  The  hun- 
gry sheep  leave  Church,  swollen  less  often 
with  theological  wind  than  in  Milton's  day, 
but  with  sociological  chaff,  which  is  no  more 
nourishing.  Earnest  people  go  to  Church 
very  wistful,  and  what  they  crave  from 
Christian  preaching  is  not  instruction  about 


66  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

reforms.  They  want  release  for  the  frozen 
springs  of  will  and  feeling,  power  imparted  to 
open  the  soul  to  the  inflowing  Grace  of  God. 
Too  often,  the  modem  pulpit  evades  their 
need.  Too  often,  the  modem  Church  seems 
like  a  great  machine  for  the  cheery  promotion 
of  social  welfare,  and  it  is  natural  enough  if 
the  charge  is  made  that  social  service,  and 
care  for  social  justice,  is  simply  that  clever 
old  enemy  materialism,  invading  the  sanctities 
in  new  disguise. 

Personally,  I  believe  that  there  is  one  way 
only  of  avoiding  the  menacing  division  be- 
tween spiritual  and  social  Christianity.  I 
believe  that  the  reproach  of  imspirituality, 
so  often  and  so  justly  cast  on  social  reHgion, 
is  mainly  due  to  the  frequent  divorce  between 
social  enthusiasm  and  Christian  dogma;  and 
that  the  special  power  of  the  Church  to  meet 
the  social  emergency  depends  on  the  presence 
within  her  of  a  large  group  to  whom  the  two 
aspects  of  her  heritage  are  alike  precious  and 
essential,  and  who  draw  their  social  radicalism 
from  the  Catholic  faith  in  its  wholeness. 

The  great  movement  of  social  reform  and 
revolution  will  go  on,  as  it  began,  quite  in- 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  67 

dependently  of  Christian  people.  But  if  the 
Christian  will  has  a  distinctive  contribution 
to  make,  such  a  contribution  must  spring 
from  the  distinctive  Christian  convictions. 
Reform,  revolution,  have  for  the  Christian 
one  supreme  aim, — the  general  release  of 
himian  power,  so  that  men  may  more  truly 
know  God  and  enjoy  Him  torever.  This  is 
the  end  of  all  our  **  preliminaries  to  sanctifica- 
tion."  Unless  a  man  know  within  himself 
this  supreme  aim,  how  can  he  rightly  further 
it  for  others?  And  what  is  the  Catholic 
faith,  except  the  ultimate  means  for  attaining 
the  knowledge  of  God  verified  by  the  Christian 
experience  of  the  ages? 

This  attitude  is  unpopular,  and  it  is  cur- 
rently asstimed  that  revolt  from  dogma  and  zeal 
for  social  reform  are  mysteriously  connected. 
Significant  books  illustrate  this  thesis;  brilliant 
men  defend  it.  It  is  a  plausible  thesis,  for  the 
alliance  is  natural  and  common.  All  instincts 
of  revolt  sympathize  while  they  are  immature, 
and  reaction  against  the  accredited  in  religion 
and  in  society  is  likely  to  make  a  simultaneous 
appeal  to  the  mind.  Yet  treacherous  acci- 
dents of  time  or  origin  can  bring  into  temporary 


68  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

alliance  movements  either  imrelated  or  op- 
posed. Communism,  for  instance,  to  many 
among  its  disciples  and  its  critics  alike,  implies 
hostility  to  marriage.  But  the  basis  of  sex 
relations  and  property  relations  is  quite  di- 
verse, and  there  is  no  earthly  reason  why 
commtmity  in  goods  should  imply  commtmity 
in  wives.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  either 
earthly  or  heavenly,  why  disbelief  in  the 
Virgin-Birth  or  the  Trinity  should  predispose 
a  man  to  oppose  vested  interests  or  sweat- 
shops. 

The  modem  churches  are  full  of  people 
who  find  dogma  a  clog  to  the  free  spirit, 
and  who  concern  themselves  with  it  as  little 
as  may  be.  Let  them  stay,  and  work  for 
righteousness.  But  let  them  recognize  the 
value  of  the  other  school,  who  apprehend 
Christianity  less  as  ethical  program  than  as 
spiritual  power,  and  whose  firm  faith  in 
Catholic  doctrine  is  the  well-spring  of  revo- 
lutionary conviction.  There  is  intimate 
tinion,  known  to  many  who  shrink  from 
speaking  of  these  arcana,  between  the  Catholic 
faith  at  its  fullest  and  social  radicalism  at  its 
boldest.     Strength  comes  to  these,  not  from 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  69 

such  generalized  religious  ideals  as  can  be 
shared  by  Buddhist  or  Jew,  but  from  the 
definite  Gospel  as  interpreted  by  the  historic 
Church.  They  leave  the  religion  of  Humanity 
to  those  without  the  churches,  for  they  know 
a  better  thing, — the  religion  of  Christ. 

Religious  fervor,  as  the  past  proves,  is 
attended  by  a  vicious  danger  of  spiritual 
egotism,  unless  it  lead  to  social  action.  But 
plain  Christians  generally  know  to-day,  as 
they  have  always  known,  that  for  them  social 
action  is  in  the  long  nm  unmotived  and 
perilous  imless  it  draw  from  deep  wells  of 
religious  faith. 


VI 


And  if  any  say,  as  they  will,  that  dogma 
is  a  dead  thing,  irrelevant  to  these  reflections 
and  to  the  love  of  God,  let  them  remember 
that  most  Christian  doctrines  are  simply 
experience  taken  at  white  heat  and  crystal- 
lized. Because  experience  is  concerned  with 
relationships,  the  richest  social  implications 
may  be  drawn  from  all  the  great  theological 
concepts   of  the   Church.     For  instance:   to 


70  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

casual  siirface  thinking,  nothing  seems  more 
remote  from  daily  life  or  more  repellent 
than  the  more  recondite  phases  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement.  Yet  nowhere  can  heroism 
be  more  truly  quickened,  nowhere  can  modem 
ethic  be  more  severely  rebuked,  than  in 
contemplating  the  amazing  depths  of  love 
which  the  Church  stimiblingly  tries  to  describe 
in  that  doctrine.  Jealousy  for  the  welfare 
of  one's  children  is  a  central  point  in  this 
ethic  of  ours:  to  protect  them  is  a  cardinal 
duty,  and  a  far  stronger  deterrent  from 
radical  change  than  personal  ambition  or 
fear;  many  and  many  a  man  would  risk  all 
for  himself  who  will  risk  nothing  for  his  child. 
Yet  the  Beloved  Son,  begotten  before  all 
worlds,  is  sent  forth  by  the  Father  to  suffer 
even  imto  death  for  the  world's  salvation; 
thus  are  our  timidities  put  to  shame;  and 
the  worshiper,  contemplating  the  Atonement 
from  the  point  of  view  not  of  man  but  of  the 
Fount  of  Godhead,  learns  readiness  to  sacrifice 
not  only  himself,  which  is  easy,  but  his  children, 
which  is  hard. 

Only  by  cherishing  the  tremendous  impetus 
to    bold  social  action    to  be  foimd    in  the 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  71 

mystical  depths  of  dogma  can  the  modem 
social  movement  be  rescued  from  the  half- 
deserved  reproach  of  putting  the  body  above 
the  soul,  and  losing  sight  of  the  eternal  in 
the  things  of  time.  And  many  believe  that 
only  by  drawing  from  this  source  can  the 
movement  gain  permanent  force  to  withstand 
the  fierce  passions  of  the  lower  nature,  and  to 
create  the  new  era  in  which  the  impossible 
paradox  shall  be  reaHzed,  righteousness  and 
peace  kissing  each  other,  and  mercy  and  truth 
meeting  as  lovers  at  last. 

And  in  proportion  as  we  draw  from  such 
source  of  strength,  perhaps  the  question 
concerning  the  reality  of  htiman  progress  will 
cease  so  actively  to  distress  us, — though  we 
may  be  no  more  able  to  give  a  categorical 
answer  to  it  than  our  Master  was.  It  is 
clear  that  in  the  mind  of  Jesus,  as  in  history, 
two  principles  were  recognized  about  the 
Coming  of  the  Kingdom:  growth  and  catas- 
trophe. When  His  Church  loses  thought  of 
catastrophe,  and  devotes  herself  comfortably 
— and  half-heartedly — to  furthering  growth, 
omens  of  future  judgment  are  likely  to  gather, 
as  they  are  gathering  now.    We  shall  do  well 


72  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

if,  obeying  Christ's  indubitable  teachings,  we 
join  to  our  steadfast  efforts  to  promote  the 
cause  of  the  Kingdom  on  earth,  the  awestruck 
readiness  for  sudden  judgment.  Of  that  day 
and  that  hour  knoweth  no  man,  and  the 
kingdom  cometh  not  with  observation;  but 
it  is  sure  to  come.  And  we  are  to  remember 
that  in  the  New  Testament  judgment  is  the 
goal  of  hope,  the  beginning  and  not  the  end; 
since  it  ushers  in  that  millenniimi  which  is  no 
heavenly  mirage,  but  the  Christian  Utopia, 
the  destined  heritage  of  fleshly  men. 

Meantime  let  us  not  soothe  our  slothful 
wills  because  Our  Lord  delayeth  His  Coming. 
Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  Christ  condemns 
inactivity.  We  must  increase  our  talents, 
we  must  tend  our  lamps,  we  must  work  in  the 
vineyard  as  if  the  harvest  time  were  sure. 
To  the  prayer,  Thy  Kingdom  come  on  earth, 
which  carries  with  it  so  certain  a  promise 
of  fulfilment,  must  be  joined  that  other  last 
prayer  without  which  the  heart  would  fail 
indeed:  Even  so  come,  Lord  Jesus,  It  is  the 
supreme  test  of  faith  to  live  in  imcertainty, 
and  to  that  test  oiu*  age  is  called.  This  means 
that  in    a  peculiar  sense,  inward  and  mystic 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  73 

as  well  as  practical,   it  must  embrace  the 
heroic  aspects  of  the  Cross. 

The  world  has  never  been  so  conscious  of 
Christ  as  in  these  days  of  horror.  Cartoons 
show  Him  everywhere.  The  hand  of  the  dead 
soldier  rests  on  His  wounded  Feet;  the  sorrow- 
ing wife  feels  His  consoling  Presence.  Kaiser 
and  King  turn  their  backs  on  Him  or  pierce 
Him  with  the  bayonet.  To  His  gray  figure 
on  the  Cross,  touched  with  dawn  in  the 
mists  that  rise  from  the  profounds  of  mountain 
chasms,  climb  bowed  processions  of  phantom 
mourners,  chanting  in  all  the  tongues  of  the 
warring  nations  to  Him  Who  is  their  Peace. 
Meantime,  those  actual  Calvaries  that  stand 
so  grave  and  still,  watching  the  battle-fields, 
bring  a  message  of  hope  rather  than  despair. 
Though  the  walls  of  the  Church  seem  shattered, 
and  though  no  rest  be  found  for  the  seeking 
soul  in  its  ruins,  it  cannot  perish  so  long  as 
Christ  abides.  For  His  presence  creates  it, 
and  that  presence,  manifest  on  its  Altars, 
shall  never  leave  the  world  He  died  to  save. 


THE  CHURCH'S  OPPORTUNITY 

The  Christian  Chiirch,  especially  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  countries,  is  awakening  to  an  extra- 
ordinary paradox  in  its  position.  This  is 
not  a  new  paradox;  but  never  before  was  it  so 
marked  as  in  our  day.  It  relates  to  the  social 
quality  of  Church  membership.  The  dis- 
inherited and  the  himible  were  the  first  to 
profess  the  faith,  and  the  formulae  of  that 
faith  are  theirs.  The  prosperous  are  those 
who  now  profess  it,  and  the  formulae  are 
strange  upon  their  lips. 

At  the  time  of  the  first  Christmas,  the  poor, 
the  slaves,  the  oppressed,  were  craving  a 
Deliverer,  throughout  that  Roman  Empire  on 
whose  upper  circles  "disgust  and  secret  long- 
ing*' had  fallen.  The  sense  of  sin,  growing 
curiously  deep  just  then,  blended  with  a 
confused  resentment  against  injustice  at  the 
roots  of  things;  the  quickened  personal  life 
shared  by  the  proletariat  with  the  rest  of  the 

74 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  75 

world,  hungered  for  some  aid  to  self-respect. 
How  fiilly  Christianity  met  these  needs — 
Christianity,  with  its  story  of  a  Carpenter, 
despised  and  rejected,  executed  as  an  agita- 
tor, victor  over  death,  Saviour  from  sins,  who 
washed  men  in  His  blood  and  made  them 
kings  and  priests  before  God!  The  new 
hope  was  bom  among  workingmen.  Secretly, 
swiftly,  it  spread  through  the  Roman  under- 
world, though  an  occasional  ''intellectual"  as 
we  might  now  say,  rose  to  leadership  in  the 
movement.  It  swept  through  Asia  Minor 
westward  to  the  center  of  empire,  thence  out 
to  farthest  barbarian  boimds.  Many  edu- 
cated and  prosperous  people  were  before  long 
touched  by  the  rapture  which  so  strangely 
blotted  out  worldly  distinctions;  yet  in  the 
main  the  faith  percolated  up  from  below, 
bearing  the  clear  stamp  of  a  proletarian 
religion.  God  had  put  down  the  mighty 
and  exalted  the  humble.  He  had  filled  the 
himgry,  while  the  rich  were  sent  empty  away. 
What  though  these  marvels  were  achieved  on 
the  spiritual  rather  than  the  natural  plane? 
All  the  more  satisfying,  all  the  more  perma- 
nent.    Blessed    were    the    poor,    the    meek, 


76  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

the  hungry  for  justice;  the  dispossessed  and 
defeated  lifted  their  brows  to  heaven  to  catch 
the  light  of  a  new  morning,  in  which  military 
valor,  administrative  power,  intellectual  acu- 
men, slipped  into  shadow,  and  the  radiance 
fell  on  the  servile  virtues  which  Paganism 
had  scorned. 

Of  course  the  situation  did  not  last  long. 
Christianity  was  too  rare  a  discovery  to  be 
left  in  the  hearts  of  slaves.  'At  first  more 
or  less  a  class-conscious  movement,  it  was 
saved  from  being  revolutionary  also  only 
by  its  apocalyptic  hope,  and  by  the  instinct 
for  non-resistance  and  obedience  native  to  the 
classes  through  which  it  spread.  But  from 
the  first  it  held  the  germs  of  a  universal  faith, 
and  it  slipped  from  the  control  of  the  prole- 
tariat as  it  had  slipped  from  the  control  of  the 
Jews.  ^  Before  long,  we  find  it  approved  by 
the  authorities;  and  the  Gift  of  Constantine, 
(*'Ahi  Costantin,  di  quanto  mal  fu  matre!**) 
united  an  institutional  Catholicism  firmly 
with  the  existing  order.  Fervent  Christian 
missionaries  now  aimed  at  the  conversion 
of  princes,  who,  when  converted,  imposed 
the  new  religion  wholesale  on  their  realms, 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  77 

and  brought  the  armies  of  their  adversaries 
to  baptism  at  the  point  of  the  sword. 

These  subject  populations  seem  to  have 
been  genuinely  Christianized  after  a  fashion. 
We  confront  a  mediaeval  Europe  which  in  a 
sense  deserves  the  name  of  Christendom ;  how- 
ever childishly  the  religion  be  conceived,  it  is  at 
least  the  common  heritage.  The  feudal  baron 
and  his  least  of  villeins  are  fed  from  the  same 
altar  and  die  with  the  same  invocations  on 
their  lips.  The  faith,  Catholic  in  more  than 
name,  encourages  a  spiritual  democracy  that 
goes  far  to  mitigate  the  harshness  of  class- 
barriers,  and  to  plant  in  race-consciousness, 
however  obscurely,  the  seed  of  brotherhood. 
Through  the  middle  ages,  our  paradox,  how- 
ever himiorous,  is  innocent  and  imconscious. 
Cheerily  the  followers  of  the  Prince  of  Peace 
go  forth  to  war  and  live  by  the  rule  of  might. 
Archbishop  Turpin  gives  his  Franks  for  pen- 
ance an  order  to  "fight  their  best'*;  Roland 
in  one  breath  invokes  St.  Michael,  and  bids 
farewell  to  his  sword,  "the  fair  and  holy," — 
prototypes  these  of  endless  warrior  prelates 
and  most  Christian,  Catholic,  and  predatory 
nobles,    on   whose   lips   the   Gospel   maxims 


78  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

sound  strange  indeed.  But  men  were  simple 
then.  The  fighting  had  to  be  done,  the 
authority  to  be  maintained,  and  simset  years 
in  a  monastery  might  always  atone  for  a 
vehement  noon.  Meanwhile,  there  were  al- 
ways the  voiceless  throngs  of  faithful,  wistful 
people — villeins,  vagrants,  poor  folk  of  the 
towns — to  whom  the  vision  of  the  city  of 
peace,  where  the  humble  should  reign,  brought 
help  and  healing;  men  who  cherished  with 
passionate  devotion  their  glorious  secret: 
beUef  in  the  workman  who  had  been  cradled 
in  a  bam,  had  Uved  a  houseless  man,  and  who 
should  be  Judge  and  Overlord  of  all  the  great 
of  the  earth.  "Our  Prince  Jesus  poverty 
chose,  and  His  apostles  twelve;  and  aye  the 
langer  they  lived  the  less  goods  they  had." 
Honor  poor  men,  "for  in  their  likeness  oft  our 
Lord  hath  been  known. '  *  So  said  old  Langland 
patiently. 

Do  poor  folk  take  like  comfort  to-day? 
One  doubts  it;  for  Christianity  to  all  appear- 
ance, at  least  in  Protestant  countries,  is 
certainly  no  longer  in  any  general  sense  a 
proletarian  religion.  As  we  said  at  the  out- 
set it  has  largely  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
privileged. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  79 

This  is  not  to  say  in  any  sweeping  absolute 
fashion  that  the  Christian  religion  is  obliter- 
ated among  the  lower  classes.  There  is  the 
Salvation  Army,  there  are  slimi  churches 
thronged  at  mass,  there  are  many  other  honor- 
able exceptions.  Yet  in  the  main  it  is  difficult 
to  deny  that  those  who  support  and  value  the 
churches  to-day  are  the  comfortable  middle 
classes,  while  those  who  first  received  the  good 
tidings  and  spread  it  over  the  civiHzed  world 
would  surprise  us  very  much  if  they  appeared 
in  the  sanctuary.  Fifty  years  and  more  ago, 
Matthew  Arnold  pointed  out  the  divorce  of 
the  working  people  from  reHgion  as  the  most 
sinister  sign  of  the  times.  He  hoped  to  win 
them  back  by  blotting  out  dogma  in  favor  of 
ethics;  but  it  is  not  the  working  class  that  has 
accepted  his  suave  attenuations  of  the  Gospel. 
To  picture  the  congregation  in  a  popular 
church,  transformed  into  the  sort  of  audience 
to  be  seen  at  a  socialist  rally  or  a  strikers' 
meeting,  is  a  starthng  flight  of  fancy.  The 
himgry  and  the  meek  no  longer  sing  the 
Magnificat.  Respectable  and  relatively  pros- 
perous people  fill  the  churches  so  far  as  they 
are  filled ;  establish  missions,  guilds,  and  insti- 


8o  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

tutional  centers  for  the  class  to  which  they 
owed  their  faith  in  the  beginning;  and  worry 
seriously  over  the  *' lapsed  masses/' 

Nor  does  one  see  any  immediate  prospect 
of  change  in  the  curious  situation.  The 
classes  at  the  base  of  things  suffer  to-day 
under  sorrowful  pressure  of  industrial  anxiety. 
Their  members  when  gentle,  have  often  too 
little  vitality  for  church-going,  and  when 
spirited  experience  too  sharp  indignation  at 
the  heart-root  to  enjoy  peaceful  religious 
hope.  General  interest,  among  them,  is  largely 
transferred  from  another  world  to  this  one; 
a  new  religion,  the  dangerous  religion  of  revolt, 
spreads  like  silent  flame  among  the  working 
classes.  Eager  in  propaganda  as  the  religion 
of  Paul  was  once,  it  lures,  it  quickens,  it  wakes 
in  dull  eyes  the  light  that  Christianity  no 
longer  kindles.  We  may  mourn  as  we  will. 
We  may  analyze  causes  forever  in  the  maga- 
zines. In  sincere  distress  over  souls  that 
perish,  we  may  multiply  our  missions;  the 
situation  will  persist.  The  people  who  most 
loudly  glorify  submission  and  renunciation 
belong  to  the  class  least  called  on  to  practice 
these  virtues;   those   who   extol   a  homeless 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  8i 

Lord  command  fair  homes  where  their  children 
gather  in  peace  aroimd  them,  while  the  land- 
less and  homeless  have  wandered  far  from  Him, 
and  are  seeking  strange  new  guides. 

What  are  we  to  learn  from  this  situation? 

No  more  extraordinary  reversal  was  ever 
seen  than  the  change,  socially  speaking,  of 
the  personnel  of  the  Christian  Church.  There 
is  little  use  in  fighting  the  situation  directly. 
There  is  less  use  in  grieving  over  it.  We  shall 
do  better  to  consider  its  good  points,  for  it 
has  them. 

We  may  notice,  for  instance,  that  the 
well-to-do  and  respectable  need  religion  quite 
as  much  as  the  proletariat — more,  if  we  are  to 
trust  Jesus  when  He  says  that  they  are  in 
peculiar  spiritual  peril.  From  this  point  of 
view,  it  is  a  cheering  fact  that  to  thousands 
of  people  in  the  prosperous  classes  religion  is 
perfectly  genuine.  Loyalty  to  the  Churches, 
does  really  foster  in  them  the  life  of  the  soul, 
however  hard  working-class  agitators  find  it  to 
believe  this.  They  break  through  into  that 
'* world  subsisting  within  itself,'*  which,  as 
Eucken  says,  rehgion  creates,  and  consciously 

6 


82  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

submit  their  being  to  iits  transforming  and 
saving  power. 

For  over  a  century  critics  have  been  an- 
noimcing  that  Christianity  was  at  the  point 
of  death;  but  never  was  it  more  aUve.  We 
hardly  need  such  proofs  as  a  Men  and  Religion 
Forward  Movement,  a  World's  Student  Chris- 
tian Federation,  a  Conference  on  Faith  and 
Order.  Countless  confraternities  and  guilds, 
Anglican  orders  revived,  Roman  orders 
dispersed  on  the  Continent  only  to  plant 
centers  of  influence  in  free  Anglo-Saxondom, 
show  the  vitality  inherent  in  the  more  rigid 
forms  of  faith;  while  a  public  that  eagerly 
absorbs  Eucken  and  draws  enormous  numbers 
of  religious  books  from  Ubraries,  is  surely 
awake  to  spiritual  things.  Emphases  have 
changed.  Ethics  and  sentiment  interest  more 
than  dogma.  That  benevolence  of  which 
Christ  said  so  little  has  become  our  central 
social  virtue,  replacing  that  joy  in  poverty 
and  that  spirit  of  renimciation  for  which  He 
pleaded.  None  the  less  the  cry  arises,  ''Thou 
hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  O  Lord,  and  restless 
are  our  hearts  imtil  they  rest  in  Thee.'* 

So  far  so  good;  yet  we  all  want  to  probe 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  83 

further.  Our  paradox  must  hold  a  summons. 
For,  to  speak  frank  Christian  language,  if 
God  has  thus  shaped  Christian  history,  it  is 
because  He  has  thought  it  well  so  to  do.  The 
situation  at  any  point  of  time — to  believe 
this  is  the  superb  adventure  of  Christian  faith 
— is  that  precise  situation  from  which  everyone 
involved  may  profit  the  most :  it  is  that  through 
which  the  Kingdom  of  God  may  advance  more 
swiftly.  The  glory  of  every  temptation, 
every  difficulty,  is  the  opportunity  it  presents. 

What  is  the  opportimity,  what  the  summons, 
afforded  in  the  dramatic  transformation  of 
Christianity  from  a  religion  of  slaves  to  a  reli- 
gion of  masters?  The  greatest  we  could  ask.  It 
is  the  chance  to  demonstrate,  with  a  imique 
cogency,  that  Christianity  is  no  mere  natural 
product,  but  a  supernatural  power.  We  can 
rout  for  all  time  the  economic  determinist. 
We  can  prove,  as  Eucken  says  once  more,  that 
''reality  has  a  depth  beyond  the  natural  man."  ^ 

Early  Christian  history  holds  no  such 
demonstration  for  the  modem  caviller.  He 
points  out  that  the  new  religion,  with  its 
emphasis  on  servile  virtues,  took  facile  root 
among  a  servile  population.     In  the  imder- 


84  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

world  of  society  a  religion  was  bound  to 
flourish  which  lent  the  grace  of  dignity  and 
the  light  of  spiritual  romance  to  the  quaHties 
of  non-resistance,  iinworldliness,  and  meekness, 
which  the  poor  were  in  any  case  forced  to 
practice,  and  exalted  into  honor  the  ancient 
badges  of  their  shame.  The  early  Christians 
sacrificed  little:  their  religion  was  a  natural 
product  of  their  economic  environment,  as  it 
remains  to  this  day  a  nattiral  consolation 
for  the  weak.  Would  you  persuade  us  to 
see  in  it  an  influx  of  grace  from  Above,  show 
it  practiced  by  the  strong! 

Where  do  we  so  find  it?  Where  perceive 
clear  proof  of  the  Christian  ideal  nmning 
counter  to  the  psychology  engendered  by 
circumstance?  One  remembers  interesting 
individuals,  down  the  centuries:  a  Francis 
Bemardone,  a  Gordon,  a  Shaftesbury.  They 
arrest  thought,  one  admits.  But  look  at  life 
in  the  large!  Christianity  has  been  really 
operative  only  with  those  groups  or  classes  to 
whom  submission,  obedience,  are  matters  of 
necessity:  Russian  peasants,  if  you  will,  or 
Langland's  poor  folk,  or  women,  before  the 
days  of  the  suffragettes.     It  has  been  easy 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  85 

enough  for  the  crushed  to  honor  meekness,  for 
the  suffering  to  console  themselves  by  the 
secret  faith  that  pain  redeems  the  world,  for 
people  "terrified  by  fears,  cast  down  by 
poverty**  to  praise  poverty  of  spirit,  and  look 
forward  to  a  Vision  of  Peace  beyond  the 
grave. 

But  let  us  see  the  powerful,  for  a  change, 
abjuring  their  power;  the  rich,  giving  poverty 
more  than  lip-homage  and  patronage;  the 
happy,  deliberately  choosing  to  suffer  with  the 
age-long  hunger  of  the  dispossessed,  till  they 
win  the  blessing  of  them  that  mourn.  Show 
us  a  corporate  Christianity  which  involves 
social  sacrifice  on  a  large  scale.  If  you  show 
that,  you  can  bid  us  believe  in  anything,  even 
in  baptismal  regeneration. 

What  is  this?  You  point  to  the  hold 
Christianity  has  on  the  prosperous  classes? 
To  our  large  congregations,  our  great  contribu- 
tions to  missions  and  philanthropy,  our  solemn 
stress  on  "social  service,**  our  magnates  of 
finance  passing  the  contribution  plate? — 
And  here  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  caviller 
pauses  and  shrugs.  Amuse  yourselves  as  you 
like,  he  says.     Try  as  you  will  to  add  to  the 


86  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

assets  of  one  order  of  things,  the  earthly, 
the  perquisites  of  another  order,  the  heavenly; 
reserve  your  Christian  principles  for  private 
consumption  in  the  family  circle,  or  treat 
them  as  an  affair  of  the  heart,  sentimentally 
spiritual,  imrelated  to  the  way  in  which 
you  make  or  spend  your  income.  Evade  as 
you  choose  the  plain  purport  of  your  Master's 
teaching  of  brotherhood.  The  religion  you 
profess  may  last  your  time,  but  it  is  as  surely 
dying  out  as  the  plants  in  His  old  story 
withered  from  lack  of  soil.  What  we  out- 
siders need  in  order  to  convince  us  that  you 
Christians  have  indeed  '*  broken  through  into 
reality"  is  to  see  those  who  can  command 
luxury,  choosing  poverty  so  long  as  their 
brothers  want;  those  who  might  rule  men, 
industrially  or  politically,  becoming  true  ser- 
vants of  the  democracy.  It  is  to  find  Chris- 
tians voting  in  public  matters  steadily  against 
their  own  class-interests,  and  in  private  life 
literally  caring  more  to  share  than  to  own. 
This  spectacle,  we  grant,  would  be  an  effective 
proof  of  a  divine  religion.  But  men  are  not 
likely  to  see  it. 

No?     But  what  if  they  did? 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  87 

Since  the  days  of  the  martyrs,  Christians 
have  had  no  chance  to  bear  witness  so  saUent, 
so  inviting,  to  the  reaHty  of  their  faith.  The 
martyr  is  only  the  witness,  though  the  con- 
notations of  pain  that  the  word  carries  imply 
that  honest  witness-bearing  has  always  in- 
volved cost.  The  test  must  be  real.  It  was 
real  in  the  Early  Church,  and  people  met  it: 
nobles,  of  whom  there  was  ever  a  fair  sprinkling 
among  believers,  as  well  as  slaves,  to  whom 
after  all  life  was  sweet.  We  may  not  have 
the  martyr-stuff  in  us  to-day.  The  very 
word  has  degenerated,  till  we  speak.  Heaven 
forgive  us,  of  a  martyr  to  rheimiatism  or  to 
relatives!  A  martyr  to  us  means  a  victim. 
Now  comes  the  chance  to  redeem  the  word, 
to  show  that  he  is  a  hero.  ReaHty  endures. 
The  nature  of  the  witness  it  requires  varies 
from  age  to  age.  These  being  the  industrial 
ages,  witness  to  truth  will  naturally  be  related 
to  the  industrial  life;  and  it  has  strangely 
and  quietly  come  to  pass  that  Christian  people 
are  now  chiefly  drawn  from  the  class  which  has 
industrial  sacrifice  within  its  power  to  make. 

Obvious  economic  sacrifice  on  the  part  of 
Christians  at  large  is  the  only  soimd  means 


88  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

to  silence  the  reiterated  sneer  of  the  material- 
istic radical  who  threatens  our  civiHzation.  He 
is  honestly  convinced  that  no  solid  gain  in 
justice  or  freedom  has  ever  been  carried  through 
with  the  support  of  those  who  had  an3rthing  to 
lose  by  it.  Here  is  the  slogan  of  the  revolu- 
tionary syndicalist,  here  the  insidious  assur- 
ance through  which  he  attracts  the  working 
people  by  thousands  to  his  religion  of  revolt. 
He  insists  ad  nauseam  that  every  advance 
in  popular  freedom  has  been  wrested  with 
difficulty  and  violence  by  the  oppressed  from 
the  oppressors.  If  you  say  that  it  is  better 
to  endure  injustice  than  to  seek  justice  by 
violence,  he  asks  if  you  regret  Runnymede 
and  the  Boston  tea-party.  If  you  remark 
sententiously  that  "nothing  is  ever  achieved 
by  violence,"  he  retorts  with  some  show  of 
reason  that  little  has  ever  been  achieved 
otherwise.  Plead  with  him  to  wait  patiently 
till  brotherly  love  shall  accomplish  its  work, 
unaided  by  coarser  powers,  he  will  point 
a  sinister  finger  at  the  workers,  for  instance, 
in  the  textile  industries,  remark  that  he  is  in  a 
hurry,  and  challenge  you  to  adduce  specific 
instances  on  your  side. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  89 

And  it  must  be  confessed  that  he  has  you 
in  a  comer.  You  search  history  too  often 
in  vain  to  refute  him.  Instances  of  individual 
seK-sacriiice  are  gloriously  common:  instances 
of  corporate  self-sacrifice  are  conspicuous  by 
their  absence.  The  most  picturesque  instance 
does  not  come  from  Christendom  at  all;  it  is 
the  abnegation  of  the  Japanese  Samurai. 

But  that  such  instances  have  been  rare 
in  the  past  does  not  prove  that  they  cannot 
occur  in  the  future.  Possibilities  change. 
Democracy  sinks  in.  It  is  bringing  about  a 
state  in  which  the  highest  private  ethics  are 
impelled  as  never  before  to  reproduce  them- 
selves in  the  collective  ethics  of  the  group. 
If  its  intuitions  are  genuine,  they  must  en- 
gender, not  merely  neutrality  but  disinterested 
action.  It  must  be  proved,  not  by  words 
but  by  deeds,  that  large  masses  of  people  are 
more  affected  by  desire  for  the  common  good 
than  by  desire  to  protect  their  own  interests. 

Democracy  of  this  type  needs  a  spiritual 
instrument.  Where  can  we  look  for  such  an 
instrument  so  naturally  as  to  the  Christian 
Church? 

The  Church  can,  to  be  sure,  do  little  in  her 


90  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

corporate  capacity.  She  is  a  spiritual,  not  an 
economic  organism,  and  as  such  she  can  serve 
spiritual  fimctions  only.  But  the  inspiration 
she  suppHes  should  guide  her  children  in  every 
province,  and  should  to-day,  above  all,  direct 
them  toward  social  sacrifice.  The  chief  hope 
of  idealism  in  the  present  crisis  is  in  the  atti- 
tude and  action  of  Christians  from  the  pros- 
perous classes.  Will  they  hold  to  the  solid, 
impertiurbable  tenets  of  their  class,  stub- 
bornly defending  a  system  alien  to  the  spirit 
of  their  Master,  even  while  professing  in 
jejtme  generalizations  to  believe  in  His  ideals? 
Or  will  they  afford  the  most  striking  instance 
in  history  of  a  group-consciousness  transcend- 
ing lower  forces,  and  acting  directly  from 
Above,  coimter  to  its  own  material  advantage? 

Should  they  so  act,  they  would  furnish 
an  amazing  spectacle  indeed:  a  miracle,  if 
you  will.  For  class  interest  is  a  force  so 
subtle,  imiversal,  irresistible,  that  to  bid  men 
defy  it  is  like  bidding  the  body  defy  gravita- 
tion, the  lungs  refuse  to  breathe. 

Is  it  not  thinkable  that  to  the  end  of  just 
this  miracle,  the  striking  transference  of 
Christianity    from    the    imderworld    to    the 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  91 

world  of  comfort  and  prosperity,  was  deter- 
mined in  heavenly  coimcils  and  brought  about 
through  slow  historic  process?  Future  Church 
historians  may  show  with  dramatic  power 
how  Christianity,  at  the  crisis  of  its  fate,  had 
insensibly  changed  from  the  refuge  of  the 
proletariat  to  the  home  of  the  privileged  in 
order  that  a  triumphant  demonstration  of 
its  divine  nature  might  be  afforded  by  the 
action  of  its  followers,  who  in  time  of  social 
revolution  were  chief  agents  in  destroying 
all  undue  privilege  by  which  they  and  their 
class  could  profit. 

The  virtues  called  for  by  Christianity  are 
distinctly  supernatural.  They  run  athwart 
every  instinct  of  imregenerate  man;  and 
to  root  them  in  the  human  soil,  every  advan- 
tage had  to  be  taken.  Even  before  the 
Christian  era  much  had  been  done.  To  give 
the  human  animal  the  freedom  of  a  higher 
than  animal  life,  is  a  tremendous  feat.  At 
first  the  process  was  evident  only  at  rare 
points  and  moments,  as  in  maternal  devotion, 
where  the  ego  is  promoted  a  little,  only  a  very 
little  way,  out  of  its  own  self.  When  that 
potent  nelp  to   the  achievement  of  the  high 


92  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

task,  the  Christian  ideal,  entered  the  world, 
it  had  first  to  sow  its  seed  among  the  lower 
classes,  because  those  classes  could  foster 
that  seed  best.  Such  conditions  as  Christianity 
found  for  its  inception  in  Judaea,  and  en- 
countered during  its  early  progress  in  the 
Roman  Empire,  were  a  necessity  for  its 
survival.  Rentinciation,  pity,  meekness,  had 
to  commend  themselves  first  to  those  who 
knew  how  to  pity  because  they  had  suffered, 
to  renoimce  because  they  had  never  possessed, 
who  by  force  of  their  outward  situation  were 
prepared  to  find  joy  in  persecution,  peace  in 
subjection,  immortal  hope  in  their  lack  of 
earthly  good. 

To  their  amazement  they  did  find  these 
things  and  found  them  precious.  In  the 
midst  of  their  chains  they  became  free,  not 
by  shaking  off  the  chains,  but  by  learning 
that  in  bondage  is  truest  freedom.  Disci- 
plined through  the  ages  in  the  mystic  Christian 
joy,  that  joy  became  to  them  so  intensely 
real  that  the  wistful  world  of  wealth  and  suc- 
cess, looking  in  their  faces,  reluctantly  acknowl- 
edged a  sweetness  beyond  all  it  had  to  give, 
and    discovered    itself    an-hungered    for    the 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  93 

secret  blessings  of  those  beneath  its  feet. 
So  even  the  prosperous  and  the  happy  learned 
to  set  their  affections  on  things  Above. 

But  the  story  could  not  end  there.  The 
Christian  virtues  may  take  long  centuries 
to  strike  deep  roots  in  lives  not  forced  to  them 
by  circumstance;  but  the  time  comes  when, 
if  they  are  so  rooted,  they  must  blossom  in 
triumphant  and  supernatural  beauty.  Other- 
wise our  planet  is  a  moral  tragedy  among  the 
spheres. 

To-day,  after  nineteen  hundred  years,  we 
hope  for  a  season  of  blossom.  Because  the 
majority  of  Christian  folk  are  now  bom  not 
to  want  but  to  reasonable  comfort,  they  can, 
if  they  will,  demonstrate  practically  that 
comfort  is  matter  of  indifference  to  them 
compared  with  love.  In  no  fantastic  asceti- 
cism but  in  sober  modem  fashion,  let  them 
renoimce  luxury  in  constmiption,  greed  in 
acquisition,  permitting  their  light  to  shine  by 
allowing  their  motives  to  be  known.  Let 
them  remember  that  there  is  that  scattereth 
and  yet  increaseth.  Above  all,  let  them  as 
members  of  the  body  politic  and  industrial 
quietly  throw  their  adherence  on  the  side  of 


94  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

justice  to  the  dispossessed,  or,  if  this  phrase 
does  not  appeal  to  them,  of  generosity  to  the 
weak. 

Never  have  Christian  people  had  a  more 
dramatic  opportunity.  Will  they  embrace  it? 
When  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  He  find 
faith  on  the  earth? 


TWO   LETTERS   TO   ''THE    MASSES"^ 

The  Masses  is  a  radical  weekly  published 
in  New  York.  It  is  clever,  searching,  clear- 
purposed,  and  bitterly  anti-ecclesiastical.  Its 
scathing  cartoons  well  deserve  attention  from 
church-loving  persons;  as  in  the  case  of  a  draw- 
ing of  prosperous  clergy  feasting  at  a  table  over 
which  hangs  a  crucifix;  below,  a  citation  from 
the  Times  stating  the  cost  of  a  clerical  dinner 
to  have  been  $5.00 — or  was  it  $10.00?  — 
a  plate;  above,  the  caption.  Their  Last 
Supper. 

But  while  the  satire  stings,  some  of  it  is 
grossly  unfair,  notably  the  contemptuous  and 
ignorant  attitude  toward  Christian  dogma. 
Certain  skits,  imitating  from  afar  the  light 
irony  of  Anatole  France,  but  imrelieved,  to 
some  minds  at  least,  by  Gallic  deHcacy  or 
point,  excited  much  criticism  a  year  or  two 
ago.     These  skits  called  forth  a  number  of 

'Reprinted from  The  Masses,  Dec.,  1915,  and  Feb.,  1916. 
95 


96  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

letters,  some  protesting,  some  applauding, 
which  the  editors  published  in  amusing  juxta- 
position. The  quotations  from  the  corre- 
spondence which  follow  are  reprinted  with  the 
thought  that  they  may  indicate  conditions  in 
sincere  radical  minds  which  the  Christian 
apologist  must  meet: 

*' Editors  of  The  Masses y 

"Gentlemen:  You  sent  me  an  appeal  for 
subscribers.  Slowly  and  lazily  I  had  just 
reached  the  point  of  getting  you  one  when  .  I 
received  the  *  Heavenly  Dialogue*  in  your  last 
month's  issue.  You  will  get  no  subscribers 
through  me.  I  am  not  afraid  of  blasphemy, 
as  I  do  not  think  the  eternal  verities  are  ever 
injured  by  it,  and  I  like  and  approve  sharp, 
clever  attacks  on  all  that  is  false  and  conven- 
tional in  religion.  But  the  smart  and  cheap 
vulgarity  of  that  thing  was  too  much  for  me. 
It  is  a  pity. 

"I  have  read  few  remarks  about  the  war  that 
struck  home  to  me  as  did  those  by  Max  East- 
man in  the  same  nimiber.  .  .  . 

**I  wish  The  Masses  could  manage  to  avoid 
offensiveness  with  no  sacrifice  of  its  trenchant 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  97 

quality,  and  I  think  it  could,  perfectly  well,  if 
the  editors  chose  to  do  so.  .  .  . 

"  Fraternally  and  cordially, 

'^VidaD.  Scudder." 

A  Western  correspondent  wrote: 

''Keep  hammering  away  at  the  failure  of  us 
who  profess  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ — 
we  need  it:  we  must  never  think  we  are 
following  his  ideals  as  closely  as  smug  com- 
placency suggests.  But  please  do  not  serve  up 
in  your  colimins  more  of  such  articles  as  that 
to  which  I  have  referred,  which  alienate 
without  benefiting — and  which  are  in  bad 
taste,  I  firmly  believe.** 

The  Masses  retorted: 

''Such  a  letter  one  can  hardly  answer  at 
all,  so  remote  is  its  viewpoint,  and  yet  so 
warm  its  good-will.  It  is  as  if  a  being  from 
some  other  planetary  system  should  write  in, 
asking  why  we  assimie  that  every  heavy  thing 
drops  to  the  earth.  We  wonder  how  this 
being  who  Hves  under  the  Lord  Jesus  as  an 
anthropomorphic  God,  ever  wandered  into  the 
orbit  of  The  Masses — and  yet,  now  that  he  is 
there,  we  would  like  to  hold  his  interest  and 


98  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

faith,  for  he  evidently  has  a  little  faith  in 
us. 

*'And  perhaps  there  is  some  ground  for  it. 
We  believe  in  Jesus.  We  believe  that  he  lived 
and  died  laboring  and  fighting,  in  a  noble 
atmosphere  of  disreputability,  for  the  welfare 
and  liberty  of  man.  To  us  his  memory  is  the 
memory  of  a  hero,  and  perhaps  a  good  deal  of 
our  indignation  against  the  Church  rises  from 
that.  We  are  indignant,  not  only  because  the 
Church  is  reactionary,  but  because  the  Church 
betrayed  Jesus.  The  Church  took  Christ's 
name  and  then  sold  out  to  the  ruling  classes. 
The  Church  is  Judas.  And  to  us  that  little 
immaculate  ikon  that  sits  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  image  of  God  in  Heaven  is  a  part  of  the 
whole  traitorous  procedure.  Whoever  puts 
Jesus  up  there  dodges  Him  down  here — that 
has  been  our  experience.  Look  into  your 
mind  and  find  out  whether  it  is  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  that  you  want  to  defend  against 
satire,  or  a  certain  paste-and-water  conception 
of  Him  which  assuredly  needs  your  defense.*' 

It  seemed  worth  while  to  comment  a  little 
further  on  this  correspondence,  so  the  follow- 
ing letter  was  written: 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  99 

"To  the  Editor: 

"With  *  inward  glee'  if  not  with  'serious 
faith,'  I  read  your  Talk  on  Editorial  Policy, 
wherein  you  print  letters  from  candid  friends, 
including  myself,  neutraHzing  each  other. 
They  are  good  fun. 

''But  I  am  moved  to  tell  you  something. 
It  is  apropos  of  the  letter  from  California  and 
your  comment  on  it. 

"What  I  want  to  tell  you  is  that  you  have 
no  cause  for  surprise  at  the  sympathy  of  '  this 
being'  for  The  Masses,  He  does  not  stand 
alone.  It  is  high  time  for  you  to  recognize  that 
anti-Church  radicals  do  not  absorb  radicalism 
any  more  than  Church-members  absorb  Chris- 
tianity. The  old  creeds  are  not  dead,  though 
impassioned  believers  in  them  are  not  often 
met,  according  to  my  experience,  in  'cultured 
Boston'  or  its  suburbs — or  anywhere  else. 
They  exist,  however,  these  believers — ^men 
and  women  who  consider  themselves,  not 
merely  with  you,  admirers  of  a  dead  martyr- 
hero,  but  disciples  of  a  Living  Lord.  Among 
these  disciples  a  considerable  ntmiber  find  the 
pungent  and  penetrating  treatment  of  Churchi- 
anity  and  civilization  in  The  Masses  as  wel- 


100  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

come  as  flowers  in  May.  They  agree  with  you 
not  all  the  time,  but  much  of  the  time,  and 
they  give  thanks  for  you  and  wish  they  were 
clever  enough  to  do  so  too. 

*'For  among  those  who  know  an  interior 
union  with  the  Living  Christ  (pardon  the 
strange  language)  He  is  manifest  more  and 
more  as  the  Christ  of  the  Revolution. 

"Of  coiurse,  this  vision  of  Him  was  long 
obscured.  But  it  has  never  been  lost.  In 
the  unpromising  eighteenth  century,  William 
Blake  defiantly  proclaimed  it: 

'  The  vision  of  Christ  which  thou  dost  see 
Is  my  vision*s  greatest  enemy. 
Both  read  the  Bible  day  and  night, 
But  thou  readest  black  where  I  read  white. 


Where'er  His  chariot  took  its  way.     ^ 
The  gates  of  death  let  in  the  day* 

**So  long  as  the  Gospels  are  read  aloud 
Sunday  after  Sunday  in  church,  the  vision 
can't  be  lost.  It  bides  its  time,  it  finds  its 
own.     It  is  most  compelling  to-day  among 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  lOi 

those  who  believe, — they  really  do,  I  assure 
you, — that  He  who  was  executed  by  the 
combined  forces  of  the  religious,  intellectual, 
and  governing  classes  of  His  day,  is  to  be  the 
Judge  of  the  human  race. 

"In  gently  asstmiing  that  no  intelligent 
person  who  enjoys  The  Masses  holds  this 
extraordinary  hope,  Mr.  Editor,  you  are 
provincial.  Please  socialize  your  mind! 
Please  open  imagination  to  the  fact  of  which 
I  inform  you, — that  there  are  plenty  of  people 
ready  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
you  in  the  fight  for  a  clean,  just,  democratic 
civilization,  who  get  authentic  inspiration 
from  sources  closed  to  you.  And  don't  sneer 
at  their  sanctities;  it  isn't  worth  while.  The 
most  seeming-obsolete  formula  is  likely  to 
have  a  sacred  heart  beating  in  it.  It  has 
meant,  at  all  events,  something  profoimd  in 
human  experience.  Were  I  in  Buddha-land, 
I  should  never  make  fim  of  even  the  most 
crude  and  popular  forms  of  Buddha-worship. 
Were  I  among  the  Turks,  I  should  say  my 
prayers  in  the  Mosques — always  supposing 
(I  am  hazy  on  this  point) — that  they  would 
admit  a  lady.     The  Masses  lives  in  a  coimtry 


102  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

where  a  great  deal  of  real  Christianity  sur- 
vives— though  I  confess  that  appearances 
rather  contradict  the  assertion.  It  wouldn^t 
do  you  a  bit  of  harm  to  show  a  little  respect  for 
it.  For  the  amazing  truth  of  the  old  Christian 
formulae  is  plain  to  the  experience  of  thousands, 
and  great  tides  of  Christian  mysticism  are 
rising  to  refresh  the  arid  souls  of  our  generation. 
**I  hardly  expect  you  to  be  interested  in  all 
this.  And  nobody  is  trying  to  convert  you. 
You  are  doing  a  lot  of  good  just  where  you  are, 
and  we  all  have  eternity,  and  possibly  many 
lives  ahead  even  on  earth,  in  which  to  learn 
things  we  don't  know.  But  as  we  muddle 
along  together,  it  should  be  possible  to  believe 
people  who  tell  us  that  they  see  a  light  we 
don't,  and  to  accept  them  courteously  as 
fellow-pilgrims  toward  the  City  of  Equity. 
"Fraternally  yours, 

"ViDAD.  SCUDDER.'* 


WHY  DOES  NOT  THE  CHURCH  TURN 
SOCIALIST?^ 

A  PERTINENT  question!  For  according  to 
the  Churches  formulae  one  would  have  ex- 
pected it  to  turn  Socialist  long  ago.  Wasn't 
it  started  Socialist?  Did  not  its  founder  assert 
with  vigor  that  an  abundance  of  private 
possessions  was  bad  and  dangerous  for  a  man? 
Did  He  not  by  deliberate  choice  annoimce 
His  Good  News  to  the  poor,  and  establish  prin- 
ciples that  would  make  it  impossible  for  any 
honest  follower  to  fight  for  his  own  advantage, 
or  to  possess  while  other  men  lacked?  Did 
He  not  go  about  proclaiming  a  revolutionary 
social  order  which  He  called  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  and  does  not  clear  thinking  show  that 
socialism  is  the  only  economic  basis  which 
would  ever  give  this  ideal  of  His  a  thorough  and 
fair  chance?    Finally,  because  He  would  not 

« Reprinted  from  a  Socialist  publication,  The  Coming  Nation, 
March,  1913. 

103 


104  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

give  up  his  convictions  or  change  His  methods, 
did  not  the  civil  and  religious  authori- 
ties, with  just  instinct  from  their  point  of 
view,  execute  Him  as  a  revolutionist  and 
agitator? 

Well,  then !  Why  has  his  Church  not  turned 
out  a  revolutionary  and  Socialist  body? 

Your  glib  answer  is  ready  to  the  question. 

The  Church  is  one  thing,  you  say  with  a 
shrug:  Jesus  is  quite  another. 

The  Church  does  not  turn  Socialist  because 
it  is  false  to  its  Master;  because  ever  since  the 
time  of  Constantine  it  has  flouted  His  ideas, 
misused  His  name,  and  has  in  these  latter  days 
at  least,  whatever  may  have  been  true  earlier, 
become  a  stronghold  of  enmity  to  the  people, 
and  to  the  cause  for  which  He  died. 

There  is  some  force  to  this  answer;  but  it  is 
altogether  too  facile.  Nothing  in  the  world  is 
so  simple  as  all  that.  True,  it  does  certainly 
look  as  if  the  Chiu-ch  might  crucify  Jesus  all 
over  again,  did  He  appear  among  us.  And  we 
have  to  confess  that  it  has  crucified  Him 
over  and  over,  down  the  last  two  thousand 
years.  Nevertheless,  it  still  bears  His  name 
and  includes  many  of  His  sincere  followers. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  105 

The  situation  demands  that  we  probe 
deeper. 

And  the  moment  we  do  so  we  see  that  there 
is  no  use  in  pummeHng  the  Church  as  if  it 
were  a  person.  DeaHng  the  ecclesiastical 
world  "slaps  and  slams*'  in  the  elegant  phrase 
of  a  socialist  contemporary  is  an  easy  and 
stimulating  exercise,  but  a  silly  one;  for  there 
is  really  nothing  around  to  be  hit.  The  Church 
is  an  extremely  complex  proposition. 

Seek  for  it  with  your  sociological  spy-glass, 
and  it  evades  you.  Which  Church?  Where? 
For  the  purposes  of  the  present  discussion,  the 
Church  cannot  be  considered  as  one  corporate 
being  endowed  with  independent  life.  Neither 
can  it  be  identified  with  its  leaders  or  official 
spokesmen,  be  they  bishops  or  just  plain 
ministers  or  even  vestrymen  and  deacons. 
The  Church  is  a  vast  association  of  baptized 
persons,  presenting  immense  variety  in  outlook, 
attitude,  and  creed,  held  together  by  a  force 
somewhat  difficult  to  define. 

This  association  has  been  in  existence  a 
long  while  and  has  lived  through  many  social 
orders.  It  gets  its  color  from  these  orders  but 
it  has  never  been  identical  with  any  of  them; 


io6  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

in  one  way  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  politics 
or  sociology.  It  cannot  officially  turn  socialist 
as  a  corporate  body,  any  more  than  it  could 
turn  imperialist  imder  the  Roman  Empire,  or 
feudal  imder  feudalism,  or  capitalistic  imder 
capitalism. 

Partisanship  in  politics  or  economics  is  as 
much  out  of  its  corporate  province  as  partisan- 
ship on  these  lines  would  be  to  a  botanical 
association  or  a  football  team.  The  only  way 
in  which  this  association  can  turn  Socialist  is 
for  the  majority  of  the  individuals  composing  it 
to  turn  Socialist;  and  this  is  what  we  really  are 
watching  for  and  are  surprised  not  to  see. 

Now,  the  force  that  imites  these  individuals 
in  the  vital  Church,  the  working  Church,  is  the 
belief  that  they  have  something  precious  to 
guard.  Brotherhood?  Yes;  but  something 
also  deeper  and  more  sacred  than  brotherhood. 

You  may  think  that  there  is  nothing  deeper 
or  more  sacred.  You  may  hold  that  brother- 
hood is  the  essence  of  religion,  and  all  there  is 
to  it.  You  have  a  right  to  your  opinion; but 
that  is  where  good  Christians,  not  to  speak  of 
good  Buddhists,  and  Jews,  and  Mohammedans 
and  Bahaists,  differ  from  you. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  107 

This  most  precious  thing  which  the  Church 
exists  to  guard  is  the  fellowship  of  finite  and 
transitory  man  with  Infinite  and  Uncreated 
Love. 

Mystical  delusion  you  say?  Very  well, 
though  it  seems  somewhat  unscientific  to 
dismiss  lightly  with  an  impatient  phrase  an 
experience  which  has  been  from  the  dawn  of 
time  the  central  passion  and  the  supreme 
desire,  a  sustaining  power,  a  consolation,  and 
a  light,  to  tinnimibered  throngs  of  every  con- 
tinent and  every  tongue.  Pure  religious  as- 
piration is  intangible,  but  it  is  mighty.  From 
land  to  land,  from  age  to  age,  it  may  change  its 
formulae,  but  it  never  abandons  its  essence. 
And  those  who  know  can  tell  us  that  it  never 
was  more  profoimdly  operative  than  to- 
day. 

However,  we  are  expounding  just  now — ^not 
attacking,  or  defending.  And  we  hasten  to 
add,  for  the  benefit  of  the  practically  disposed, 
that  this  insistent  craving  for  fellowship  with 
the  imseen  is  not  the  only  factor  in  the  bond 
that  unites  Church  and  people.  It  carries 
with  it  of  necessity  a  further  emphasis.  For 
in  the  Church  it  is  held  that  such  fellowship 


lo8  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

can  be  attained  only  through  growth  in 
holiness. 

Now,  holiness  is  only  another  word  for 
character  raised  to  its  highest  possibilities. 

It  means  in  each  individual  a  triumph  of  the 
higher  nature  over  the  lower,  triumph  won  by 
fierce  and  endless  moral  struggle,  of  which  the 
seat  is  the  individual  heart.  The  achievement 
of  such  triimiph  on  the  part  of  as  many 
individuals  as  possible  is  the  one  matter  of 
importance  in  the  world.  Hopelessly  in- 
dividualistic, you  perceive.  Still,  the  race 
does  happen  to  be  made  up  of  individuals. 

Even  to  appraise  the  value  of  an  economic 
scheme,  you  have  to  get  back  to  your  in- 
dividual every  time.  At  all  events,  character 
is  the  word  of  the  Church — involving  on  the 
lower  levels  morality  or  faithfulness  to  the  law 
of  right;  on  the  higher  levels,  holiness,  or 
unity  with  the  law  of  love;  and  always  imply- 
ing the  possibility,  clouded,  dim,  yet  infinitely 
precious,  of  fellowship  with  what  Hes  beyond 
tl^e  world  of  sense. 

The  Church  perceives  or  thinks  she  does 
that  these  things  can  be  and  are  attained  imder 
all  conceivable  variety  of  economic  circum- 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  109 

stance;  and  therefore  she  is  incUned  not  to 
care  a  rap  whether  people  are  rich  or  poor  and 
whether  they  live  in  comfort  or  discomfort. 

Even  with  the  ethical  stress,  this  whole 
scheme  of  things  is  foolishness  to  those 
modems,  if  such  there  be,  who  hold  that  good 
housing  conditions  and  adequate  reward  for 
every  man  are  the  omega  as  well  as  the  alpha 
of  human  needs;  also  to  those  others,  indubi- 
tably numerous,  who  are  convinced  that  the 
study  of  natural  law,  with  the  pursuit  of 
'*arts  yet  unimagined  yet  to  be"  is  going  to 
satisfy  the  hunger  for  a  vision  of  Truth  beyond 
the  edge  of  the  world. 

But  these  modems  must  realize  how 
ardently  the  people  who  fill  the  churches 
believe  the  other  way.  All  church  folk  to 
whom  religion  is  a  reality  speak  a  language  of 
their  own.  They  are  sure  that  they,  with  any 
others  who  recognize  the  human  need  for  that 
great  fellowship  with  the  Unseen  God,  alone 
''inhabit  reality,"  to  use  James's  admirable 
phrase.  And  the  reason  they  do  not  turn 
socialist  is  their  fear  that  socialism,  especially 
as  it  is  currently  presented,  threatens  the 
power  to  achieve  such  fellowship. 


no  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

They  do  not  feel  that  people  if  released  from 
economic  bondage  will  be  any  more  likely  to 
become  heirs  to  the  old  title,  ''Friends  of 
God/'  They  are  full  of  terror  lest  a  concen- 
tration of  the  public  mind  on  the  goods  of  the 
flesh  should  blind  it  to  the  goods  of  the  Spirit; 
lest  sociaUsm  should  persuade  men  to  a  lazy 
idea  that  the  race  will  be  made  good  by  rote 
when  the  socialist  state  arrives,  and  that 
meanwhile  we  fulfill  our  whole  duty  if  we 
agitate  for  this  state,  relaxing  all  stress  on  the 
ancient  tussle  for  individual  self-restraint  and 
goodness. 

The  religious  world,  so  far  as  it  holds  aloof 
from  socialism,  inclines  to  one  of  two  attitudes. 
Either  it  thinks  that  sociahsm  offers  a  low 
substitute  for  religion,  mere  wheat  bread  for 
the  Bread  of  Life,  in  which  case  it  regards 
socialism  as  an  enemy;  or  else  it  thinks  as  we 
were  saying  that  economic  circimistance  bears 
no  relation  to  character,  in  which  case  it 
regards  socialism  as  irrelevant. 

How  full  we  are  of  answers — ^we  Christians 
who  happen  to  be  socialists!  The  present 
writer  has  recently  written  a  whole  book  to 
prove   to   her   fellow-Christians  how   wrong 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  iii 

they  are.  We  are  in  a  hurry  to  say  that  the 
Food  of  Immortality  can  be  sacramentally 
conveyed  only  through  common  bread  and 
wine;  that  in  the  blessed  oneness  of  being, 
soul  helps  flesh  "no  more  than  flesh  helps 
soul, "  so  that  our  plain  business  is  to  make  the 
flesh  of  all  men  healthful  and  wholesome;  and 
we  point  with  horror  to  the  Satanic  forces  of 
Disease  and  Apathy  brooding  sinister  over 
factory  and  slum. 

I  am  afraid  that  we  socialist  Christians  en- 
joy hearing  St.  James  say  to  the  capitalists, 
especially  those  who  fill  the  churches:  Go  to 
now,  weep  and  howl !  Certainly  we  hold  with 
John  that  if  a  man  does  not  love  his  brother 
whom  he  has  seen  he  is  not  likely  to  love  God 
whom  he  has  not  seen;  and  just  as  we  perceive 
(what  many  good  people  curiously  fail  to)  that 
the  brotherhood  of  man  implies  Fatherhood — 
somewhere — so  we  see  that  a  imiversal  Father- 
hood implies  a  brotherhood  not  of  our  seeking 
but  of  divine  ordaining. 

Probably  a  majority  of  people  in  the 
churches  now  get  as  far  as  this.  There  is  a 
quite  general  loathing  of  self-centered  spiri- 
tuaUty   to-day   and   a  strong  reaction   from 


112  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

nursing  our  own  sotils  while  babies  are  making 
artificial  flowers.  And  a  significant  minority 
gets  further.  It  sees  that  socialism  is  the  only 
effective  way  at  this  stage  of  social  evolution 
of  practicing  himian  fellowship,  and  so  reach- 
ing fellowship  with  God. 

This  minority  in  the  Church  is  very  firm  in 
its  conviction.  It  is  quite  sure  that  faith  in 
Dante's  *'Love  that  moves  the  sim  and  the 
other  stars"  is  in  the  long  run  the  only  asset 
that  separates  man  from  brute;  but  it  is  also 
equally  sure  that  socialism  will  prove  favor- 
able to  the  full  expansion  of  such  faith  and 
that  the  socialist  reorganization  of  society  is 
the  only  way  to  give  the  endless  struggle  for 
the  perfecting  of  individual  character,  which 
is  the  condition  of  spiritual  vision,  any  kind 
of  a  fair  show. 

We  try  our  best  to  show  this  to  all  our  fellow- 
Christians.  But  still  they  hesitate.  Still  they 
tell  us  that  there  is  danger  lest  the  precious 
things  attained  by  blood  and  tears  and  anguish 
be  all  thrown  away,  lest  moral  freedom  be 
abolished  by  our  system,  and  the  race  sink 
back  into  a  dreary  vulgarity,  a  kind  of  ethical 
Philistinism,  with  no  romance  of  the  spirit,  no 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  113 

fine  heroisms,  no  more  quest  for  the  light  that 
glimmers  at  the  horizon's  verge. 

Their  fears  sound  plausible.  We  must  do 
justice  to  their  honesty :  to  that  jealous,  ser- 
ious passion  for  moral  and  spiritual  values 
which  is  in  great  part  the  source  of  the  diffi- 
culty felt  by  religious  people  in  accepting 
Socialism. 

We  of  the  minority  can  hardly  refrain  from 
retorting,  however,  that  if  economic  comfort 
be  a  dangerous  condition,  or  an  irrelevant  one, 
it  is  strange  that  church  members  should  for 
the  most  part  cling  to  it  so  tenaciously — and 
possess  so  very  large  a  share  of  it,  compared 
with  the  babies  making  artificial  flowers. 

Honest  church  people  have  an  interesting 
answer  ready.  They  have  to  grant  us  some- 
thing, and  they  point  to  St.  Francis,  or  to  his 
theories,  and  tell  us  that  we  are  right  in  a 
degree,  but  that  the  way  out  is  not  to  press 
socialism  but  to  persuade  them  and  their  like 
to  a  voluntary  sacrifice  of  their  possessions. 

Now  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  about 
this  answer  which  cannot  be  said  to-day.  But 
it  certainly  does  soimd  just  a  little  academic 
and   Utopian — and   the   babies   continue   to 

8 


114  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

starve.  Meantime  it  points  us  to  other 
factors  in  the  situation  less  noble  than  those 
we  have  been  considering,  yet  important  to 
keep  in  mind  if  we  are  looking  for  a  straight 
answer  to  our  question. 

The  Church  has  that  inward  life  on  which 
we  have  been  dwelling.  But  it  has  an  outward 
life  also.  And  this  outward  life  is  largely 
dependent  on  the  offerings  of  the  well-to-do 
classes.  It  is  certainly  a  far  cry  from  Fifth 
Avenue  ecclesiastical  architecture  to  the  shores 
of  the  Lake  of  Galilee;  yet  by  natural  process 
of  growth,  Fifth  Avenue  Church  edifices  have 
appeared. 

The  Church  is  an  institution  maintaining 
buildings  and  officials  and  an  enormous 
quantity  of  charitable  work,  excellently  well 
meant,  however  shortsighted.  Now  the  in- 
ward life  is  by  far  the  deeper  and  more 
important.  It  is  what  holds  the  whole  thing 
together.  Were  it  conceivable  that  the  crav- 
ing for  imion  with  God  should  cease  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  the  Church  would  vanish 
within  a  generation.  All  the  handsome 
church  buildings,  the  vested  choirs,  the 
eloquent   preachers,    the   full   congregations, 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  115 

would  **like  the  cloudy  fabric  of  a  vision  leave 
not  a  rack  behind, "  if  once  the  race  lost  sight 
of  that  faint  gleam — on  the  clouds  is  it?  Or 
shining  from  a  land  very  far  off,  beyond  the 
confines  of  sense?  But  so  long  as  that  craving 
endures,  churches  will  be  built, — and  perhaps 
the  building  of  them  will  always  hurt  and 
hamper  the  freedom  of  the  exploring  mind. 

The  paradox  of  the  situation  reacts  pain- 
fully on  the  hearts  of  church  people,  espe- 
cially of  officials.  How  can  they  imperil  their 
hold  on  the  community  which  supports  the 
Church  and  all  its  works,  by  joining  forces 
with  those  who  would  menace  the  very  basis 
on  which  that  community  rests?  It  is  not  in 
most  cases  a  crude  question  with  clergymen  of 
retaining  their  jobs,  though  this  consideration 
has  to  come  in;  it  is  rather  a  question  of  the 
enterprises  which  they  father.  And  there  are 
many  drawn  to  the  Socialist  faith  who,  for  one 
or  the  other  reason,  do  not  dare  to  join  us. 

At  least  three  clergymen  of  good  standing 
in  their  respective  communions  have  avowed 
this  to  the  writer  within  the  year.  "Wait till 
I  educate  my  children,'*  said  one.  *'I  do  not 
wish  to  lose  the  power  for  good,  and  indirectly 


Ii6  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

for  socialism,  which  I  now  exert  through  an 
academic  chair/*  said  the  second.  *'You  see/' 
sighed  the  third,  *'we  carry  on  schools,  and 
if  I  were  to  join  the  socialist  party,  those 
schools  would  be  ruined/' 

Lamentable  enough.  Yet  even  in  these 
cases  the  reasons  for  hesitation  were  not 
wholly  ignoble.  Mere  counsels  of  prudence 
and  timidity  would  never  have  prevailed  with 
these  honest  and  devoted  men. 

Further  conversation  revealed  the  strong 
feeling  in  all  of  them, — and  it  is  a  feeling  very 
wide-spread, —  that  while  socialism  was  doubt- 
less the  true  economic  doctrine,  the  socialist 
movement  in  America  was  too  materialistic, 
autocratic,  and  quarrelsome  for  churchmen  to 
join  without  endorsing  a  spirit  which  they 
were  bound  to  disapprove.  The  confusion  of 
motive  was  very  bad  for  them,  and  for  us. 

What  to  do  about  the  situation?  Well,  we 
are  not  concerned  to-day  with  answers,- - 
and  my  space  is  gone. 

One  trouble  is  that  Nature  expects  us  to  be 
enthusiastic  about  a  nimiber  of  things  at 
once,  and  we  all  find  it  hard  to  obey.  We  can- 
not respond  to  the  amplitude  of  her  demands. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  117 

We  do  not  manage  half  as  well  as  Humpty 
Dumpty  in  Alices  who  had  trained  himself 
to  believe  as  many  as  ten  impossible  things 
before  breakfast;  we  can  hardly  ever  believe 
more  than  one  at  a  time.  Nature  herself  does 
many  things  all  at  once,  but  when  she  desires 
to  get  a  piece  of  work  done  by  men,  says 
Emerson  somewhere,  she  evolves  a  type  of 
people  who  feel  that  the  achievement  of  that 
one  end  is  the  only  thing  which  matters  in  the 
imiverse. 

So  orthodox  church  people,  believing  in- 
tensely that  the  growth  of  the  soul  is  the  only 
important  thing,  find  it  hard  not  to  distrust 
the  socialists,  who  so  hate  cant  about  the  soul 
that  they  never  mention  the  organ.  Orthodox 
socialists  meanwhile,  thinking  it  supremely 
important  that  babies  should  not  make  arti- 
ficial flowers,  find  it  hard  not  to  be  a  little 
contemptuous  of  people  who  stay  aloof  from 
the  great  modem  struggle  for  economic 
freedom. 

Yet  there  is  no  logical  reason  why  sociaUsts 
should  not  care  for  spiritual  values,  and 
religious  people  care  for  social  justice.  There 
is  every  reason  why  they  should,  for  the  indica- 


ii8  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

tions  are  that  Nature  has  both  at  heart,  and 
that  neither  cause  can  in  the  long  run  flourish 
without  the  other.  Perhaps  sociaUsts  and 
Christians  alike  will  learn  this  some  day.  So 
far  as  the  Church  is  concerned,  there  is  always 
that  strong  and  growing  minority.  Give  us 
time. 

In  England,  they  say  that  the  advance  of 
sociahsm  depends  largely  on  the  church  vote. 
Ten  more  years  here  in  the  United  States,  and 
who  knows  what  may  happen?  Especially  if 
socialists  should  get  more  in  the  habit  of 
acknowledging  that  the  soul  is  of  importance. 


A  PLEA  FOR  SOCIAL  INTERCESSION 

Everyone  knows  that  religion  is  under- 
going a  social  revival.  Where  our  fathers 
agonized  over  sins  of  the  inner  man,  we 
lament  our  social  crimes.  Where  they 
analyzed  their  relations  to  God,  we  analyze 
our  relations  to  our  brothers.  Perhaps  we 
are  less  conscious  than  the  Puritans  were  of 
loving  Him  whom  no  man  hath  seen  at  any 
time, — but  we  are  a  great  deal  more  conscious 
of  loving  our  fellow-men. 

The  change  of  attitude  may  entail  loss  as 
well  as  gain.  If  it  means  pragmatic  indiffer- 
ence to  the  things  of  the  spirit,  it  means  loss. 
If  it  means  that  anything,  however  lovely  and 
sacred,  supplants  in  the  soul  the  supreme 
desire  for  the  Living  God,  it  cuts  life  at  the 
heart-root,  and  though  the  plant  may  still 
seem  green  and  fresh  for  a  time,  slow  death  is 
on  the  way.  There  is  reason  to  fear  that 
modem  social  feeling  does  have  these  bad 

119 


120  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

tendencies  sometimes.  The  quest  for  imion 
with  Eternal  Love  is  a  stem  and  fearsome 
thing,  and  men  are  always  seeking  facile 
substitutes.  So  they  try  to  replace  this  quest 
by  a  vague  himianitarian  ardor,  press  the 
sure  truth  that  laborare  est  orare  to  the  point 
of  eliminating  orare  altogether,  and  make  a 
religion  out  of  ministering  to  the  poor  and 
working  for  social  justice.  When  they  feel 
the  need  for  more  contemplation,  as  every- 
body does  at  times,  they  betake  them  if  they 
can  to  the  great  woods  and  relax  pleasantly 
as  they  enjoy  Nature.  These  people  are 
repeating  in  modem  fashion  the  specious  error 
of  the  old  ^'Quietists,'*  whom  Ruysbroek  so 
dreaded  in  the  fourteenth  century.  For  they 
are  without  that  "eternal  hunger  which  shall 
never  more  be  satisfied ;  it  is  an  inward  craving 
and  hankering  of  the  loving  power  and  the 
created  spirit  after  an  imcreated  Good.*' 
"Fruitive  love,'*  which  is  the  old  mystic's 
final  phrase  for  the  ideal  life,  is  denied  to 
them:  Instead  of  this,  they  ''enter  into  rest 
through  mere  nature  .  .  .  and  this  rest  may 
be  found  and  possessed  within  themselves  by 
all  creatures,  without  the  grace  of  God.  .  .  . 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  121 

In  this  bare  vacancy,  the  rest  is  pleasant  and 
great/*  .  .  .  *'This  rest  is  in  itself  no  sin/' 
says  Ruysbroek,  but  it  has  no  relation  to  **the 
supernatural  rest  which  one  possesses  in  God/' 
However  much  such  people  may  be  addicted 
to  good  works,  they  can  never,  he  says,  enter 
the  arcana. 

A  condition  like  this  is  lamentable  and 
superficial.  Yet  no  one  would  lose  out  from 
rehgion  that  intense  social  preoccupation 
which  is  now  seizing  on  it.  For  a  mighty 
force  is  regenerating  the  whole  body  of  the 
Church.  The  recovery  of  social  emphasis  in 
the  spiritual  life  is  the  great  means  by  which 
our  age  is  getting  ''back  to  Christ,"  who  in 
nearly  all  His  teachings  was  primarily  con- 
cerned with  mens'  relations  to  one  another. 
We  can  pray  the  Lord's  Prayer  as  it  has  not 
been  prayed  since  the  days  of  the  Master, 
and  we  are  learning  the  force  of  the  sequence 
in  the  petitions.  ''Hallowed  be  Thy  Name": 
the  attainment  of  a  lofty,  holy,  hallowed 
conception  of  God  is  humanity's  first  need. 
"Thy  Kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done,  on 
earth":  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  the  true 
social  order  over  which  God  can  reign  im- 


122  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

challenged  and  supreme,  precedes  the  doing 
of  the  Will,  which  is  the  personal,  intimate  ful- 
fillment, of  the  Divine  life  within.  And  then, 
descending  to  the  present  level  from  that 
aspiration  toward  ultimate  ideals  which 
prayer  must  never  forfeit  or  postpone,  the 
petitions  for  immediate  needs.  **  Give  us  this 
DAY  our  daily  bread  " :  let  all  htimanity  receive 
the  physical  nourishment  which  it  requires. 
"Forgive  as  we  forgive,** — ^we  are  negatively 
indulgent  enough  sometimes  toward  sinners 
but  do  we  forgive  them  quite  as  we  want 
God  to  forgive  us?  **Lead  us  not  into 
temptation,  deliver  us  from  evil,*' — and  our 
whole  industrial  system  adapted  it  would  seem 
almost  deliberately  to  tempt  the  strong  and 
to  betray  the  weak!  The  great  petitions  are 
a  social  program  in  themselves,  which  if  we 
live  as  we  pray  will  carry  us  far  indeed  toward 
expressing  the  Mind  of  Christ  in  a  new  order 
of  Christian  living. 

No,  we  cannot  give  up  our  social  vision 
and  we  may  not  give  up  our  ancient  quest. 
Rightly  understood,  each  fulfills  the  other. 
And  in  one  special  way  they  meet.  It  is  the 
Way  of  Prayer,  modeled  on  the  Prayer  of 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  123 

the  Lord,  the  Way  of  Intercession.  Through 
intercession,  the  old  type  of  rehgion  is  one 
with  the  new,  and  aspiration  rises  Godward 
even  while  tenderness  holds  humanity  in  its 
embrace. 

Intercession  is  the  counterpart  in  the  life 
within  of  social  work  in  the  life  without.  Of 
all  effective  work  it  is  the  soul.  In  vain  does 
the  Church  create  social  service  commissions, 
and  announce  fairly  drastic  programs  of  social 
reform.  In  vain  does  the  commimity  estab- 
lish associations  to  fight  every  evil  under  the 
sim,  organize  efficient  relief  for  its  social 
victims,  and  grope  toward  new  industrial 
ideals.  All  this  is  good,  and  one  rejoices  that 
whatever  a  man's  tastes  and  convictions,  there 
is  a  place  for  him  in  the  social  crusade.  It  is 
good,  it  is  necessary;  but  at  times  it  all  turns 
to  ashes  in  the  mouth.  We  look  abroad,  and 
"brothers'*  in  the  awkward  words  of  a  well- 
meaning  hymn,  are  still  ''engaging."  We 
look  at  home,  and  we  know  that  nobody  is 
living  as  St.  Francis  would  live,  or  St.  John. 
Are  we,  for  that  matter,  living  as  Jesus  would 
have  us  live?  Here  is  a  graver  question: 
whose  conscience  is  wholly  free?    Futility  and 


124  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

helplessness  press  us  down.  In  the  night- 
silence,  oiir  fussy  energies  seem  pretty  poor 
things,  pretty  useless. 

And  all  the  while  we  have  power — sure 
power — ^power  that  goes  straight  to  the  mark. 
Truly,  truly,  Christ  says  to  us,  Whatsoever 
ye  ask  in  My  Name,  I  will  do  it. 

Whatsoever!  And  what  are  we  asking? 
Let  us  examine  our  prayers.  How  languid 
they  are,  how  perfunctory,  and  alas!  how 
often  selfish!  Sometimes  one  feels  that  men's 
prayers  must  sadden  God  even  more  than 
their  sins.  Prayer  is  the  deepest  and  surest 
measure  of  personality.  As  men  pray,  so 
they  really  are.  For  people  do  pray  even  in 
these  imbelieving  days  for  what  they  want 
intensely.  When  a  dear  friend  is  in  peril, 
they  pray.  When  they  encoimter  personal 
crisis,  they  pray.  When  they  see  a  glorious 
sunset,  they  instinctively  Uft  their  hearts  to 
the  Source  of  Light.  But  prayer  must  be 
more  than  instinct  or  sudden  emotion,  it 
must  be  the  habit  of  the  disciplined  Christian 
life.  A  force  more  penetrating  and  powerful 
than  gravitation  or  electricity  is  entrusted  to 
us,  and  we  are  responsible  for  the  steady  use 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  125 

of  it  and  its  direction  to  the  noblest  ends.  Do 
men  look  to  wide  horizons,  do  they  ask  great 
things?  Or  is  their  inward  life  self -centered 
even  while  the  outer  may  be  filled  with  fine 
impersonal  interests?  If  they  really  want 
social  justice  they  will  pray  for  it;  activities 
are  not  worth  much  unless  they  constantly 
turn  into  upward-leaping  desire. 

Some  people  think  themselves  reUgious 
just  because  they  like  to  pray  and  to  go  to 
church.  And  of  course  that  is  something, 
but  it  is  not  very  much.  To  spend  our  pre- 
cious time  for  prayer, — usually  scant  at  best, 
— in  begging  for  personal  gifts  and  graces  or 
in  enjoyment  of  personal  consolations  is  as 
selfish  as  to  spend  active  lives  in  pursuit  of 
personal  gain,  and  one  can  be  as  greedy  in 
spiritual  affairs  as  in  any  others.  The  time 
can  go  in  asking  for  health  or  wealth  or  suc- 
cess or  affection  or  pleasure  or  peace;  it  can 
go  in  asking  similar  gifts  for  friends,  which 
is  very  much  better.  But  do  most  people 
get  farther  than  their  own  circle?  Does 
their  prayer  reveal  that  the  rescue  of  chil- 
dren from  wage-slavery,  of  men  from  condi- 
tions that  stifle  manhood,   of  women  from 


126  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

the  manifold  evils  which  weigh  them  down,  is 
a  potent  and  passionate  desire?  Prayer  is 
the  desire  most  native  to  the  soul  turned  God- 
ward,  and  egotism  at  the  center  of  the  soul's 
life  is  an  awful  thing. 

It  is  the  impression  of  such  egotism  conveyed 
by  the  life  of  many  mystics  and  holy  men, 
which  has  caused,  often  unjustly,  the  reaction 
against  them.  But  how  great,  how  subtle, 
the  danger!  The  best  way  of  escaping  it 
without  running  into  the  opposite  danger  is 
the  practice  of  intercession.  For  by  inter- 
cession, life  at  the  center,  life  in  the  sanctuary, 
may  be  purified  from  self  and  lost  that  it  may 
be  foimd.  Also,  life  is  energized;  for  right 
praying  involves  hard  thinking,  and  the  mind 
addicted  to  indolent  evasion  will  never  kindle 
the  sacred  fire.  God  sets  no  limit  to  audacious 
importimity.  Men  may  ask  for  the  greatest 
things,  for  the  industrial  and  political  peace 
of  the  world,  for  universal  justice.  But  if 
their  prayers  are  to  prevail,  they  must  avoid 
all  lazy  generalizations,  they  must  have  point 
and  precision  of  aim.  In  proportion  as  they 
attain  breadth,  point,  and  ardor,  the  hidden 
life  turned  inward  will  be  cleansed  from  selfish- 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  127 

ness  and  the  life  turned  outward  from  arro- 
gance or  discouragement,  and  the  kingdom 
will  come  faster  than  men  dream. 

There  is  secret  sacrifice  involved  in  placing 
special  emphasis  on  Intercession.  It  is  the 
sacrifice  demanded  by  an  age  peculiarly  called 
to  labor  for  social  ideals.  Petition  at  highest 
is  only  a  small  part  of  prayer.  Praise  is  a 
blessed  duty,  confession  of  sin  a  necessity: 
above  all  other  forms  comes  that  ptire  single 
concentrated  Practise  of  the  Presence  of  God 
whence  flows  all  peace  and  power.  Consider- 
ing the  richness  of  the  life  hid  with  Christ  in 
God  through  prayer,  one  cannot  marvel  if 
it  drew  men  of  old  away  from  all  earthly  pur- 
suits to  an  exclusive  consecration.  But  the 
Via  Contemplativa  is  to-day  the  way  for  very 
few;  and  perhaps  precisely  in  the  sacrifice  of 
dearer  energies,  the  subordination  of  possible 
hidden  joys,  lies  part  of  our  expiation  for  com- 
munal guilt.  The  joys  may  wait  on  that 
great  day  when  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord 
shall  come  to  Zion  with  songs  and  with  ever- 
lasting joy  upon  their  heads.  Here  and  now, 
God  may  best  be  foimd  by  those  who  in  the 
secret  Ufe  forever  deny  in  part  even  their 


128  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

higher  desires,  that  they  may  lift  the  sorrow- 
ful needs  of  the  world  up  to  his  Heart  of 
Mercy. 

Through  intercession,  the  handicapped,  the 
sick,  the  feeble,  the  inhibited  from  action, 
can  find  their  place,  can  march  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  vigorous,  or  perhaps  can 
lead  the  march,  in  the  inspiriting  advance 
toward  the  Kingdom  of  Justice.  Legislative 
reforms,  and  greater  things,  may  be  achieved 
by  desires  rising  from  some  obscure  bed  of 
pain.  Yet  this  is  no  mere  work  for  private 
initiative,  it  is  also  a  work  for  the  Church. 
Lien  grope  to  discover  how  an  aroused  Chris- 
tian commimity  can  react  on  the  social  situa- 
tion through  its  ecclesiastical  machinery;  the 
answer  is  difficult,  opinions  vary.  Some  say 
that  the  clergy  should  throw  themselves  into 
politics,  some  that  they  should  stay  out. 
Some  want  institutional  churches,  some  de- 
spise them.  Some  wish  the  Church  to  inau- 
gurate social  service  under  her  own  name, 
others  think  that  if  she  does  she  will  simply 
chip  in  at  cross  purposes  to  wiser  secular  agen- 
cies. But  one  thing  the  churches  surely  can 
do  without  harming  or  interfering, — they  can 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  129 

summon  people  to  pray  for  social  justice,  and 
they  can  teach  them  how.  In  a  parish  or  a 
diocese,  or  in  the  Church  universal,  why  should 
not  a  Novena  or  a  Week  of  Prayer  be  now  and 
then  proclaimed  against  some  shocking  evil 
— child  labor,  or  the  White  Slave  traffic? 
If  Christian  people  threw  themselves  heartily 
and  reverently  into  such  a  scheme  and  got 
themselves  ready  for  prayer  by  becoming 
intelligent  on  the  issue,  what  an  access  to 
zeal  would  ensue  on  the  merely  himian  side! 
And  in  that  imseen  region  whither  prayers 
wing  their  flight,  who  can  tell  what  forces 
would  be  set  in  motion? 

Phillips  Brooks  used  to  tell  how  a  ntmiber  of 
good  Episcopalians  got  together  at  the  time 
of  the  great  Boston  fire  and  said  the  Litany. 
"And  there  was  a  provision  in  it  for  every- 
thing under  the  sim,'*  said  he,  *' except  for 
a  burning  city/*  Obviously,  this  special 
Church  has  been  sadly  in  need  of  more  flexi- 
bility, and  she  has  been  gaining  it  lately. 
Intercession  services  are  common  and  in- 
creasingly prized.  Cannot  they  be  more 
vigorously  turned  toward  social  salvation, 
while  losing  none  of  their  fervor  for  missions, 


130  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

for  parochial  ends,  for  individual  needs? 
Will  not  the  numerous  Guilds  of  Prayer 
develop  social  intercession?  One  such  guild 
at  least  is  especially  pledged  to  pray  for  the 
reconciliation  of  classes,  and  so,  whenever  a 
great  strike  or  labor  war  is  in  progress,  hun- 
dreds of  people  all  over  the  country  are  en- 
treating, with  what  ardor  God  and  their 
conscience  vouchsafe,  not  that  one  side  or 
the  other  may  triimiph  necessarily,  but  that 
brotherhood  may  prevail. 

Yet  there  is  no  need  to  wait  for  corporate 
action.  Let  every  man  examine  his  private 
life.  Is  he  satisfied  with  the  idea  God  gains 
of  him  from  his  prayers?  In  prayer  more 
than  in  any  other  pursuit  one  must  be  honest; 
there  is  danger  in  pretending  to  desire  what 
one  does  not  really  care  about.  But  also  one 
may  grow.  The  world-crisis  calls  men  faith- 
fully and  fervently  to  enlarge  and  energize 
their  life  of  prayer.  So  the  old  and  the  new 
ideals  of  religious  life  will  be  brought  into 
unison;  so  the  Mystical  Body  of  Christ  will 
come  to  her  own,  in  power  to  help  and  heal. 
Thank  God  for  letting  us  pray!  May  we  be 
worthy  of  the  Gift  and  the  Stmimons! 


THE  SIGN  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

Thy  Kingdom,  Lord,  we  long  for, 

Where  love  shall  find  its  own. 
And  brotherhood  triumphant 

Oiir  years  of  pride  disown. 
Thy  captive  people  languish 

In  mill  and  mart  and  mine; 
We  lift  to  Thee  their  angtiish. 

We  wait  Thy  promised  Sign! 


Thy  Kingdom,  Lord,  Thy  Kingdom, 

All  secretly  it  grows; 
In  faithful  hearts  forever 

His  seed  the  Sower  sows. 
Yet  ere  its  consimmiation 

Must  dawn  a  mighty  doom. 
For  judgment  and  salvation 

The  Son  of  Man  shall  come. 
131 


132  The  Church  and  the  Hour 

If  now  perchance  in  tumult 

His  destined  Sign  appear, — 
The  Rising  of  the  People, — 

Dispel  our  coward  fear! 
Let  comforts  that  we  cherish, 

Let  old  tradition  die; 
Our  wealth,  our  wisdom  perish, 

So  that  He  draw  but  nigh! 


In  wrath  and  revolution 

The  Sign  may  be  displayed. 
But  by  Thy  grace  we'll  greet  it 

With  spirits  imafraid. 
The  awestruck  heart  presages 

An  Advent  dread  and  sure; 
It  hails  the  hope  of  ages — 

Its  Master  in  the  poor. 


Beyond  our  fierce  confusions. 
Our  strife  of  speech  and  sword, 

Our  wars  of  class  and  nation, 
We  wait  Thy  certain  Word. 


The  Church  and  the  Hour  133 

The  meek  and  poor  in  spirit 

Who  in  Thy  promise  trust 
The  Kingdom  shall  inherit, 

The  blessing  of  the  Just. 


The  End 


;D  21-- 


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